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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



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OUR 



Sabbath Evening 



HOME MEDITATIONS, 



IN PROSE AND VERSE. 



— BY — 



• 
ALPHONSO A. HOPKINS. 






'Vi 



BOSTON: 

D. LOTHROP & COMPANY, 

32 Franklin Street. 



■/UO I 






^ 



COPYRIGHT : 
BY A. A. HOPKINS. 

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BY THE SAME AUTHOR: 

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CONTENTS. 



PAGE 



IN THE TWILIGHT 9 

THE NEW LEAF II 

THE SILENT CHRIST I3 

OVERCOMING 1 6 

DOUBTING DISCIPLES 1 8 

THE VALLEY OF ACHOR 2o 

STRONG IN WEAKNESS 21 

A PRESENT CHRIST 2 2 

THE STILL SMALL VOICE 24 

THE HOMESICK 25 

OUR BETHESDA 2j 

THY ROD AND STAFF . . - 29 

THE BEAUTY OF HOLINESS . . . . 30 

HUMAN DESIRES ...... 3 I 

AS A PRODIGAL 33 

pain's MINISTRIES 34 

THE ROUNDS OF BEING 36 

THE OTHER SIDE $7 

THE SIN OF INDIFFERENCE 38 

FOOLISH DARING 39 

OUR GUIDES 41 

HUMAN AFFECTION 42 

MEASURING CHARACTER .44 

THY PEACE 45 

god's FATHERHOOD 47 

HUNGERING AND THIRSTING .49 

A HEART SONG 50 



IV 



CONTENTS, 



divine ordering .... 

the service of waiting 
christian life. . 
Christ's abiding . . 
the pure in heart 
the endless day . . 
the angel of healing 
the deeper rest. . . . 

toward sodom. . 
day by day .... ... 

one with the lord . . 
jephthah's DAUGHTER 
THE HYMNS OF HOME. . 
I SHALL BE SATISFIED . 
PENALTIES FOR SIN . . 

AT THE LAST 

EARTH'S TWILIGHT TIME 
A mother's PRAYERS . . 
the underlying hope 
feed my lambs .... 
christian patience . . 
conversion to christ. . 
selling our birthright 
the song of miriam. . . 
the master truth . . 
Christ's compassion 
Christ's humanity . 
the father's voice. . 
an appropriating faith 
impetuous christianity 

UNREST 

COURTING SIN . . 
" AND THEN" 
" COME UNTO ME" 
KNOWING GOD 
PATIENCE WITH SELF 
THE TOUCH OF FAITH 
PSALMS IN THE NIGHT 



5 1 
53 
54 
56 
57 
58 
60 
61 

64 

65 
66 

68 
70 
71 
73 
75 
76 

77 

79 

80 

82 

*3 
85 
87 
89 

9i 
93 

96 

98 

99 
101 
103 

104 
106 

108 
109 



contents. v 

" no night there " ho 

materializing heaven i i 2 

"vanity of vanities'' 114 

AT THE ALTAR . .. . Il6 

at the end i i 7 

having and holding i 19 

the hills of god 120 

our little ills i 2 l 

my manna ...... ...... ...... i 23 

"by their fruits " 124 

humanity's danger ... 125 

little by little 127 

belief in christ . i 28 

belief .... ........ 129 

every-day philosophy 131 

it is well 133 

completeness of faith i 34 

the two malefactors 135 

lost little ones i37 

IS THERE A SAFER TRUST 138 

IN SHADOW . . 1 40 

CHRISTIAN INDIGNATION ...... . , 14 I 

OUR SAMSONS 142 

MY WILDERNESS I44 

MNAS NEED 145 

BY THE WAY 147 

THE GATE BEAUTIFUL 149 

THE SUMMER IS ENDED . l6o 

blessed are the meek . i 52 

christ in the home i53 

his coming 155 

demonized manhood 1 56 

"am i my brother^ keeper " i58 

the divine healing . 1 57 

sanctifying toil 1 60 

the ever absent 1 63 

god's leading 164 

TRUSTING l66 



VI CONTENTS. 



ALONG THE WAY 



167 

THE POVERTY OF RICHES I 68 



OUR THANKSGIVING . 

THANKSGIVING 

DOUBTING CHRIST . . . 
THANK-OFFERINGS. . . 
IN THANKFULNESS. . . 
OUR HEART-OFFERING 
A CHRISTIAN HABIT. . 
THE STAR DIVINE. . . . 
NEWNESS OF LIFE. . . . 



I70 

I72 

174 

176 

177 

•• l 79 

180 

182 

184 

JESUS WEPT 185 

MY THANKFUL THOUGHT 1 87 

THE CHRIST-CHILD 1 89 

THE LAND OF MOAB 1 90 

THE BLESSED THOUSAND YEARS 1 92 

POWER OF PRAYER .... I 94 

ABILITY TO GIVE I95 

god's TIME 197 

GOOD GIFTS I98 

WHEN THE END COMETH 200 

GOD 7 S MORROW 202 

"AS THE LEAF" 203 

HUMAN SYMPATHY 204 

A PSALM OF PRAISE 2O5 

THE RENDERING OF GRATITUDE 207 

BLESSED ARE THEY THAT MOURN 2o8 

CHRISTIAN EXPRESSION 2IO 

BEFORE THE SERVICE 2 12 

IN SIGHT OF THE CITY .213 

SHALL HE BE SAVED 2 I 5 

THE LONELY LAND 2 I 7 

LOOKING BACKWARD 2I9 

AT EVEN TIME 221 



TO 

MY MOTHER, 

THE HUMAN INSPIRATION 

OF 

WHATEVER IS TRUE AND WORTHY IN MY LIFE, 

AND OF 

ALL THAT IS PUREST AND MOST HELPFUL 

IN MY WRITINGS ; 

AND TO 

MY PASTOR, 

ABOUT WHOSE MORNING THOUGHT 

MY 

EVENING MEDITATIONS OFTEN CLUSTER, 

I DEDICATE 



THIS BOOK. 



IN THE TWILIGHT. 

Sabbath evenings are especially pleasant at home. 
However large or small the circle, an influence known 
at no other time through the week makes itself felt, and 
produces marked effects. Education has much to do 
with this, to be sure — and for the same let education be 
thanked ! But there is a somewhat in the Sabbath at- 
mosphere unlike anything in the week-day work and 
worry — a somewhat that is restful, and tranquillizing, and 
sweet. There is, or there ought to be. - "Six daysshalt 
thou labor," holds within it the truest economy of life, 
even considered wholly apart from any sacred significance. 
It is well for us at regular intervals to get away from our 
labor — to stand removed, as it were — and look upon it 
in the light of its relation to our inner existence — to 
walk out of our lower selves into a self that is higher, 
and better, and nobler. 

We whose weeks are ever weeks of toil, need just what 
Sabbaths bring of quiet reflection. The world is a very 
busy world, and its opportunities for silent meditation 
are few, indeed. Amid its whirl and stir we are pressed 
upon every hand by duties that will not be thrust aside, 
and that too often call only our baser being into action. 



IO IN THE TWILIGHTS 

Here in the home, as the Sabbath evening shadows gath- 
er, we have drifted out from the world, and all its dis- 
cordant noises fade far away. The morning service — 
with its hymns that were in themselves a benediction, and 
its words that were a kindly ministry to our souls — the 
Bible-study that followed, and our afternoon's readings, 
have borne us outward, and only in our on-coming sleep 
need we drift back to the every-day being and doing (and 
sinning?) once more. 

But though separate from the world for a little, we can- 
not forget its wants, its wickednesses, our own daily fail- 
ures, our personal needs. The rather ought we to 
remember them in fervent prayer. The sermon of the 
morning had for its theme "The Resultant Effects of 
Sin ;" and the preacher showed by numerous illustrations 
that though we sorrow deeply over any transgressions 
our repentance cannot avert the natural consequence of 
sach transgression. David of old repented bitterly o* 
his heinous sin before God, but the effects of that sin 
were not done away. "The child that is born unto thee 
shall surely die," was spoken in almost the same breath 
with that comforting assurance of pardon : — "The Lord 
also hath put away thy sin." So is it ever. God pardons 
the sin ; but its consequences remain. But for this we 
might go on sinning indefinitely, looking to a final repen- 
tance to clear it all away. In the light of this fact 
however, every added sin is a something added to the 
sum of evil consequences, forever beyond our reach, never 
to be effaced by repentance most sincere. 

The world thinks differently, it would seem. Do we 



THE NEW LEAF. II 

not seem to think differently ourselves, often, when we 
mingle with the world ? In the hush of our Sabbath even- 
ing we hear the heart's soft answer — ' ' Yes. " And we say 
to ourselves, in tenderly prayerful words — "Pray God that 
all sin may henceforth be kept far from us, so that none 
of its consequences shall be set down to our charge !"' 
God grant to hear such petition, even as though it were 
addressed on bended knee ! 



THE NEW LEAF. 

' ' We have turned over a new leaf, " said Ruth on 
New Year's morning. 

"A new leaf!" How many are turned over with every 
New Year ! It is a time for reflection, for fresh resolving, 
for added fervor of zeal. 

Sitting here to-night, we look back over the old year, 
and seeing much that was base and impure, much of 
failure and faltering, we feel as though to turn over a 
new leaf were well indeed. We have so much to cor- 
rect, so much to purify, so much to strengthen. 

But does the turning over a new leaf once a year work 
out what is needed ? Is it not a little sad to think so 
many new r leaves must be turned over? What of the 
old ones ? Are they full ? and is the writing so crude 
and imperfect we blush over it ? Or aie they just blanks, 



12 THE NEW LEAF, 

or blanks in part, whereon we meant to write beautiful 
things and through waiting and hesitation failed to write 
at all ? 

Let us not quite give over the old leaves. If we held 
purposes noble and pure — and did we not ? — let us hold 
to them still, with only a better endeavor, and a larger 
faith. If we planned well, but indolently neglected to 
execute, let us stand by the old plans. If our hope was 
a good hope, let us cherish it to the end. We may have 
newness of life, though we stand fast by the old year's 
purposing, planning, and hoping. 

And it may be the new life in the old that shall bless 
us beyond measure. May be ! Is there any doubt of it ? 
Our new life is always the old, with a difference. It is 
old — the individuality of it, the scope of it. Real newness 
came into ir but once — when Christ's spirit gave the new 
impulse. Since then the only newness is a newness of 
doing. Shall the doing be really new and true in the 
year to come? Shall we write the new leaf full with' 
steady purpose, with unfaltering faith, with love for God 
and our fellowmen ? 

O would our leaves of life were fair 

With faithful writing everywhere ! 

O would that love shone clear and true 

Each plan and purpose ever thro'; 

That zeal did never faint and tire ; 

That hope ne'er waned to low desire ; 

That so ezch New Year's dawn should bring 

The old year's buds to blossoming, 

And so all hopes and plans should tend 

Through patient work to perfect end ! 



THE SILENT CHRIST. 

Along Judea's homely ways 

The young Messiah trod, 
Within Him hid through weary days 

The wonder-working God. 

The sick no healing in Him knew, 

No help the smitten sore ; 
To wretched Gentile, needy Jew, 

No aid divine He bore. 

The blind went by Him to and fro, 
Through all their lonely night ; 

Yet none the tender touch might know 
Of hands that held their sight. 

The poor in poverty's distress 

Lay by the rich man's gate, 
Nor dreamed that heavenly power to bless, 

Their iaith could antedate. 

Alone amid the mass of men 

He moved, the silent Christ, 
To no divinest message, then, 

His human lips enticed. 

A worker with the work day throng, 

Perhaps He yet could hear 
Some strains of that transcendent song 

The angels chanted near ; 



14 THE SILENT CHRIST. 

The sweet good-will, the peace on earth, 
With which they sung Him in, 

Through lowly door of human birth, 
Upon the world of sin J 

j Perhaps He listened, rapt and still, 

Amid the noisy round, 
To learn the Father's secret will, ' 
His purposes profound ; 

Perhaps upon Judea's sands 
He dreamed of waters sweet 

That once He drank in heavenly lands 
Close by the^Father's feet ; 

Perhaps upon Judea's hills 
He looked with longing eyes, 

On scene no mprtal vision thrills 
With tender, glad surprise ; 

Perhaps on lonely nights He slept 
To human sound and sense, 

But waked to angels' touch and kept 
Their fit communion hence ! 

We may not know. He came and went 
With mortals, like the rest ; 

No hint of growing discontent 
His human life expressed ; 

From out His dual consciousness 
No word divine He spoke ; 

The silent Christ, in human dress, 
His silence never broke. 

The world was weary grown indeed, 
And cried for Him in grief ; 



THE SILENT CHRIST. 

Around Him grew the human need, 
And found no full relief. 

And still He held His silent way — 
The waiting, silent Christ — 

Till God's own long-appointed day 
His lips to speech enticed ! 

Then whereso'er He chanced to be 
He spake the Living Word ; 

The hearts of men, the stormy sea, 
In sudden wonder heard. 

And ever since that blessed time 
When silence found its speech, 

In helpful syllables sublime 
His words have come to each : 

And never silence so divine 
Shall walk the world again, 

As lived and moved and made no sign, 
Among Judea's men ; 

As wrapped with human garb around, 

The homely ways it trod, 
And in its mystery profound 

Was but the breath of God! 



15 




OVERCOMING. 

Ruth was reading in Revelations, just before the 
twilight came on. When it grew too dark to see, we all 
sat there a while in silence. 

" He that overcometh shall inherit all things/' repeated 
Ruth, at last. "That is a blessed promise," she went on 
to say. * ■ I think of no sweeter comfort for tired souls. 
And I am glad the phrase that precedes the promise is 
so comprehensive. ' He that overcometh ; It does not 
say what must be overcome. It is not limited, in its 
application, to any particular individuality. It covers, 
so, all human stress and strain. " 

"Then you think each man and woman of us has 
somewhat to overcome ?" one asked. 

"I know it, "she responded, with feeling. "Life is a 
battle for us all. How hard the fight for some, you and 
I may never quite understand ; but it seems hard enough, 
even for us. We are borne down sometimes, to the very 
dust. We cry out w r ith pain and longing. We want so 
much that we do not have — peace, and plenty, and luxury, 
the seeming joys of a richer and better endowed being 
than our own. 

' ' What is it to overcome ? Well, each one can answer 
that question for himself or herself. I believe in 
temptations according to temperament, and contests 



OVERCOMING. IJ 

growing out of these peculiar to individual character. 
For me to overcome would be one thing ; for you to 
overcome might be very different indeed. Is it not, 
primarily, just an overcoming of selfishness ? So it seems, 
as I look at it. All that self wants, only for self-satisfaction, 
and not self-improvement — that is to be battled against. 
Every passion that may degrade — that is to be conquered. 
Every desire and impulse that may work ill to the soul 
— these are to be set aside. 

" And what is the gain ? Much comes to us here, but 
the 'all things' of our inheritance wito shall estimate? 
I like to feel that I am to inherit) that what is promised 
me I may not, can, not earn ; that I must go out of this 
life poor as I entered it, whatever my service ; that I am 
to be rich beyond measure by-and-by ju st because God 
is good beyond measure always, kind and tender and 
lovingly beneficent. His promise of an inheritance for 
me seals, somehow, my relation to Him. It makes me 
feel that He is truly my Father, and I am as Luly His 
child. I shall not forever want, because His promises 
fail not. The infinite riches are certain, to such as are 
heirs of God." 



With regard to the past — -it is gone. Regrets are un- 
availing. And the future ? It is not ours. , We have 
the present, and that alone. Good resolutions for days 
to come' are worth nothing. We must live as we would 
live, now. 



DOUBTING DISCIPLES. 

The text of the preacher this morning was that remark 
of Thomas, so heroic in form, so despondent in spirit — 
"Let us also go up, that we may die with him." 

Was it merely a happen-so, that the small band of dis- 
ciples chosen by our Saviour numbered such diverse 
dispositions, — that there were so many distinct tempera- 
ments in it? Had not Christ a purpose in His every 
doing ?-and were not these diverse natures chosen as so 
many types of what the vast army of disciples should be 
in years to come ? We think so. 

Thomas was the type of doubt. From all we can 
learn of him, he looked ever on the dark side of things; 
was continually prophesying evil to come. He was a 
sincere believer in the Master, perhaps, in the abstract. 
But he doubted in the detail. He felt uncertain of the 
end. He questioned always as to results. 

How many of us so doubt, so question ! Have we as 
good reason as had Thomas? Assuredly not. It* needed 
a stronger faith to believe unhesitatingly in Jesus Christ 
present in the flesh, than it now needs to* believe in 
Him risen from the dead and sitting at the right hand of 
the Father. He was the carpenter's son, then ; he has 
been our Mediator ever since. It is not so strange that 
Thomas doubted then, as that Christians doubt to-day. 



DOUBTING DISCIPLES. 1 9 

We know more of Jesus Christ than Thomas knew, even 
after he put his hands in those gaping wounds. Chris- 
tianity has been preaching its divine origin these 1,800 
years, — preaching it with no additions, but with a more 
complete development. It has proved its character by 
what it has done for the race. 

What excuse, therefore, have the doubting Thomases 
to-day? Suppose there are dark times in individual 
experience, why doubt ? Suppose the end is hedged about 
and baffles oui percievings, why despond ? Such has been 
the case in thousands of other instances. Men have 
doubted, and desponded, but Christ lives yet. Uncer- 
tainty has brooded over all the way many times before, 
but we have always come out into clear paths after a while, 

Verily, Thomas was a type of what should be, but not 
of what ought to be. We may not shoulder all our 
dubious forecastings upon temperament, and hold our- 
selves blameless. As well might we excuse overt sin 
because we were born with a tendency to sinning. Men 
doubt, not so much because of any predisposition so to 
do, as because of a cultivated, liking for unbelief. Men 
have cultured themselves into skepticism — they are doing 
it yet. Doubts will come to as, sometimes, and we are 
not to blame for their coming. But we are blameworthy 
if we let them take lodgment and stay, — if we feed and 
cherish them and let them invite others. 



THE VALLEY OF ACHOR. 

Make me to feel, loving Son 

Of loving Father, just and kind, 

That I with sin and doubt have done, 

And now, with peace and trust at one, 

My will to Thee is all resigned ! 

Make me in fullest faith to see 

My every wickedness laid bare, 
Renounced forever, as I flee 
From this poor life of self, to Thee, 
And learn Thy love beyond compare ! 

Make this indeed to me the Vale 
Of Achor blest, where now I yield 

The sweetest sin that would assail 

My longing soul ; nor let me fail 

To show Thee, Lord, the sins concealed ! 

The wilderness through which I came 

Seems present yet ; but round me wait 
The Canaan-lands, and in Thy name 
I may possess them. Mine the blame 
If for their sweets I famish late ! 

In weakness great, O Lord, I lift 

My face to Thee, in hunger sore ! 
Send still Thy manna sweet and swift, 
A.nd give my withered soul the thrift 
Of blessing gracious, I implore ! 



STRONG IN WEAKNESS. 2 1 

Here, Lord, I gladly give Thee all ! 

My sins, my self, I yield to Thee ! 
Thou art not far from every call 
Of burdened heart, — here let me fall 

Upon Thy breast, and burdens flee ! 



STRONG IN WEAKNESS, 

" To suffer and grow strong." It is not the natural 
sequence. Suffering begets weakness, as a rule. . Few 
suffer long and keep their vigor undiminished. 

And we must all suffer. All ? They are few who 
escape suffering. It comes to each in some form- 
suffering of the body, or mental anguish, or keen hurt 
of the soul. Does it come ever with a blessing? We 
know it does. We know that some characters find 

perfection through sorrow, even as Christ found His. 

For was there not a progression in our Saviour's life ? 
He was tempted, and in many forms ; did He not grow 
strong to resist temptation ? Surely that final test was a 
hard one when He hung alone in the death agony, and 
His heart cried out so piteously after the Father. It was 
bad enough to be forgotten of men, and bruised for their 
iniquities ; it was infinitely worse to be forsaken of God. 

Through the suffering of sympathetic ministry, of the 
scorn of unbelievers, of long and bitter temptation, of 
agonizing prayer, of denial and betraying, of taunts 



22 A PRESENT CHRIST. 

and tortures, the Son of Man grew strong. Through 
suffering of some sort, the best stiength must come to 
each of us. When out of suffering comes strength, then 
is suffering a blessing. How shall the strength come ? 
The answer may be found in Christ's own life. He 
prayed much. He trusted ever in the Father and in the 
Father's love. In His prayers and His trust He grew 
strong. How else can men grow strong to-day ? 



A PRESENT CHRIST. 

The family circle had been some time quiet, as the 
shadows deepened. By-and-by a sweet voice stirred the 
silence, and we heard the tender strains of that touching 
little hymn — When Jesus Comes. It had a certain pa- 
thos in it for us all. Over the last stanza sung the singer 
lingered as if each word had peculiar comfort : 
" He '11 know the way was dreary, 

When Jesus comes ; 
He '11 know the feet grew weary, 
When Jesus comes ! " 
None spoke, for a little, when the singing ceased. 
Presently, out of the corner where the home-heart sits, 
this comment came : 

" I would rather believe that He knows all about my 
way and weariness now. I want to feel that Jesus is not 
one afar off, to come and to bless in some happy future, 



THE PRESENT CHRIST. 2$ 

but a companion for every day, a friend in every need, a 
very present help in time of trouble/' 

"And you do not like the song then?*' another asked. 

"It is very sweet," said the home-heart, softly; 
" very sweet, and I do like it. It is only that I question 
its sentiment, or perhaps I should say its philosophy." 

"But is Christ always so near to you? Does He 
never seem far off, and do you never feel that the way is 
dreary and the feet tired without His knowing ? " 

"Oh, yes \" and she sighed as she made reply. "We 
have doubts, all of us. We doubt the most when we are 
most tried and most heart-sick. But doubt and darkness 
are temporary. It would be folly long to give up faith. 
And when I sing I like best to sing of the Comforter who 
came when Christ ascended to the Father — the very 
Spiiit of Christ dwelling with and abiding in us." 

" But there may be songs of comfort, " said the singer's 
voice ; ' ' even David sang songs in the night. I have a 
fancy that the surest way out of the dark is by a path of 
song. The way is dreary, now, to some of us. It seems 
o me that many must rind it so all along. Perhaps they 
have too little faith in a present Christ ; but if they can 
hold on surely to their faith in a Christ to come, even 
that will bless them and make them glad. That which 
we long for, hope for and pray for, will suiely come. " 



THE STILL, SMALL VOICE. 

Serene and tender shine the smiles 
Of God upon my soul to-night ; 
His loving care my doubt beguiles ; 
His presence bringeth light. 

The world of discord dies away ; 

I hear no more its deaf ning din ; 
And ghost-like through the evening gray 

•Steal out the shapes of sin. 

A holy hush is on the air ; 

A holy peace possesses me ; 
My very being is a prayer, 

To pray is but to be ! 

Did God but speak as long ago 

He spoke to prophets face to face, 

I should His loving language know 
Within this holy place ' 

And does He not in present time 

So speak to men as once He spoke ? 

With awful syllables sublime 
He Sinai's silence broke ; 

And not again in thunder tone 

May men His awful speaking hear, 

But all the ages men have known 
His " still, small voice" anear. 



THE HOMESICK. 2 5 

Somen have listened, hushed and still, 

As list we now, my soul and I, 
Have caught, as now we catch, the thrill 

Of God's own whisper nigh ! 



THE HOMESICK. 

The Germans have added another beatitude to those 
uttered by our Saviour on the Mount — "Blessed are the 
homesick, for they shall see home. " There is a quaint 
tenderness in it. How broad its original meaning may 
have been, we can not say ; but it seems wide enough to 
cover half of human kind. 

There are so many homesick souls ! homesick amid 
wealth, and beauty, and friends — homesick in poverty 
and loneliness — crying out of their discontent for the 
comfort and peace of home ! They hunger ; and at 
home there is enough. They thirst; and at home the 
pure streams of gladness flow on and on forever. Alas 
for these many who are ever away from home ! 

Will they all reach there at last? "Blessed are they 
that do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they 
shall be filled." Ah ! there is fullness at home. "Bless- 
ed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. " 
Ah ! there is comfort, even, at home. "Blessed are the 
pure in heart, for they shall see God ! " Blessedest bless- 



26 . THE HOMESICK. 

ing of all, God lives henceforth at home ! ' ' I go to pre- 
pare a place for you/' said the dear Brother of us all; 
and He spoke then to the homesick. The place He 
prepared is Home. 

It is singular that Christ uttered so many benedictions 
upon those who want. Blessed are the hungry, blessed 
are the poor, blessed are the sad— blessed, blessed, bless- 
ed, every needy soul. And so, finally, just as an out- 
come of all Christ said, blessed are the homesick, for 
they want, and must want until they see home. And 
what is it they want? Love, and content, and rest. 
Home means this, and more — so much more ! Even as 
we know how to give good gifts unto our children, so 
does our Father in Heaven know how to give unto us. 
Giving so freely here, what must He not give there ! 
Remembered so abundantly afar off, what will He not 
do for us when we wander home at last ! 

We are journeying there, some of us, through devious 
paths. Ah ! if we should forget the way, and that long 
night should come on in which no light can shine, and 
the morning should find us wanderers yet, homeless and 
homesick henceforth and forever ! Blessed are the home- 
sick, if ihey walk trustingly, faithfully and prayerfully on 
toward the city of God, for to such as walk by faith the 
way is sure, and they shall see home ! 



OUR BETHESDA. 

In a certain sense we are invalids, all our lives long. 
We have in us some conscious sickness that must be cured. 
And we lie in expectant waiting by some Bethesda, as 
did those invalids of old, waiting for the angel to come 
and stir the waters that we may be healed. 

Is not our whole life often a weary waiting for the 
healing ? Do we not fail, frequently, to recognize God 's 
angel when he comes in such kindly ministry ? Are not 
the waters troubled, even while we gaze on rhem, yet 
without our perceiving? Weak and blind, and half des- 
pairing, do we not turn away sometimes even from the 
angel 's very presence, and cry out in our bitterness against 
what has come to us and what we have missed ? 

If all mankind could be made whole in just the man- 
ner they wish, what a working of wonders we should see ! 
But that can never be. The healing we most desire 
comes to us often by ways we do not prefigure, and to our 
dull consciousness it is no healing at all. Lying by our 
Bethesda, if we see the waters troubled it is for another, 
and we wait on, not taking what is really meant for us. 
If our healing should come through love and warm 
sympathy, we long for it, and then turn it aside when 
offered. If faith would work the perfect cure we need, 
we spurn it when it comes knocking gently at our heart's 



2 8 OUR BETHESDA. 

door, and in unbelief and doubting wait on. If sweet, 
charity to all in thought and deed would make us well, 
we cast it aside for that which is embittering and unkind, 
and watch for the angel 's coming with a light in our eyes 
that would make of every angel almost a demon. 

Is it strange, then, that we go unhealed ? Is it strange 
that at every pool of gladness and joy-giving we lie in 
waiting all the years long? To be made whole is the 
supreme want. Humanly speaking each lacks some- 
thing. That lack must be supplied, and only our dear 
Lord 's angelic ministers can supply it. May they trouble 
the waters for us all, and speedily ! Divinely speaking, 
each lacks everything, lacking a childlike trust in and 
love for that most loving of all God 's ministers, His only 
begotten Son. And may He trouble the waters of our 
soul until the healing is perfect, and then grant us that 
peace which passeth understanding ! 



The man who walks the street recognizing the excel- 
lences of other men and honoring them, will find his 
fellows conceding and esteeming his own virtues. He 
who gives helping sympathy, abundantly and warmly, to 
the suffering and sad, will himself have help and sympa- 
thy, abundant and warm, when he suffers and is sad. 



THY ROD AND STAFF, 

Perplexed I walk my weary way, 
In doubt and darkness, day by day ; 
I see no earthly light to cheer, 
I find no earthly comfort near ; 
But weak and fainting though I be, 
' Thy rod and staff they comfort me ! " 

I seek some friendly arm to aid, 
The help I need is long delayed : 
I look for love to hold me fast, 
No human love will always last: 
But though all earthly helpers flee, 
" Thy rod and staff they comfort me ! " 

My burdens yet more heavy grow, 

As on the weary way I go ; 

And faint and hungered, weak and worn, 

The while for losses great I mourn, 

In longing sore I turn to Thee, — 

" Thy rod and &taff they comfort me ! " 

Beneath Thy smitings oft I shrink ; 
Thy bitter cups I would not drink ; 
I turn aside some path to find, 
That through a better land shall wind, 
Yet looking back, Thy face I see, — 
" Thy rod and staff they comfort me ! " 

And so I walk the weary way 
Where'e^Thou leadest, day by day ; 



3° 



THE BEAUTY OF HOLINESS. 

Though smitten sore, I'll onward press 
Till I the Promised Land possess ; 
For faint and burdened though I be, 
" Thy rod and staff they comfort me ! " 



GRACES OF HOLINESS. 

A visitor is with us to-night and we ask about former 
acquaintances — has this one changed? — has that one 
grown old ? To the latter question, in one instance, our 
friend replies, — "She has too much spiritual beauty in her 
face ever to grow old." 

We remember her face well, and Ruth says, "Yes, 
hers was the beauty of holiness, if we ever see it on 
earth ; " and this application of a phrase rarely so applied 
does not seem wrong. 

Character does show itself in the countenance; the 
inward grace of a real religious life will shine out, in a 
way we may not quite describe. When faith, and love, 
and patience all unite to beautify a Christian soul, is it 
strange that the face takes on a rare sort of beauty which 
years can not dim? 

The light in some faces is like a benediction of peace. 
It is at once a blessing and a declaration. Nothing but 
the purest pi^ty makes it to glow there : it blesses you as 
by a holy influenc ; it tells of devotion never failing, of 
untroubled faith, of perfect hope, of undivided love. 



HUMAN DESIRES. 3 I 

Stephen's face wore It ; they must have seen it who saw 
the beloved John. It has beautified the features of every 
saint on earth ; it is one of the beauties of every saint 
in heaven. 

Such a beauty of holiness comes not by the seeking of 
it. Like all true graces, it is an unconscious possession, 
won not for itself. But it is always a proof of possibili- 
ties in the Christirn life. It is ever a witness for higher 
Christian character. It is a living testimony that care 
and tribulation and disappointment need not mar the 
soul's peace. For you shall find, search where you will, 
that this beauty spiritual lies with those who have suffer- 
ed, and borne burdens, and been driven, so, near to 
God. Holiness follows and must follow, overcoming. 
The beauties of it, the outward manifestations of it, are 
results of unselfish upgiving, of complete trust, of never 
doubting or rarely doubting love. 



HUMAN DESIRES, 

What are they ? What ought they to be ? 

We may not doff our humanity untit death comes, but 
we may discipline it, purify it by such disciplining, make 
it a worthier thing. We may, with God's help. 

But will we? To do it, much of our desire must 
undergo change. Whereas we now long for that which 
wonld in no wise ennoble, we must long for that which 



3 2 



HUMAN DESIRES. 



will inevitably do that. Whereas self now prompts every 
ambition* self must be ruled over until ambitions spring 
from another source — the love of God within us. 

Yet can we put thought in a strait jacket ? Can we 
persistently check impure desires, unholy aspirations, and 
help on the work of improving our moral nature? It 
seems a hard task ; it is a hard task. Appetite is strong ; 
passion is often master. Prayer at times is apparently of 
no avail. Everything that is evil in our hearts fights 
tenaciously for full possession, and often full possession is 
granted. Then we go down — down in our own con- 
sciousness. We lose self-respect ; we feel less and less 
zeal in behalf of the true and pure. 

We all know what such experiences are. Is there any- 
thing sadder? And where is the iemedy? We ctn answer 
well enough In our theory; it sometimes proves more 
difficult in actual fact. The difficulty arises mainly, we 
think, from just a lack of self-discipline. Even effica- 
cious prayer is rendered inefficient, at times, through this 
common lack. It is useless to pray for purity of thought 
and desire, and still let the imagination continually run 
riot over forbidden fields with never an effort at checking 
it. It is idle to hope for answers to such prayer, when 
back of it there is no earnest resolve to be self-helpful, 
and to strive continually for better things. Human de- 
sires can be purified only through human discipline, and 
much of this can be carried on by self alone. 



AS A PRODIGAL. 

It is evening, Lord. I have had my day 
Out in the wilderness, far from Thee, 

Bright was the morn when I went away, 
Happy my visions of joy to be. 

In the hot high noon I was weak and faint, 
Worn with rioting, heartsick, sore ; 

Never I murmured or made complaint ; 
Onward I crept to the sands before. 

What if they blistered my naked feet ? 

Better to suffer than turn back now. 
What if I 'd nothing but husks to eat ? 

Pride may starve, but it will not bow. 

And what if with swine I could only mate 
Out in the barren and dusty field? 

What if I pined for my lost estate ? 
Pride may die, but it will not yield. 

Pride may die. And my pride is dead — 
Dead, and buried where sleep the swine. 

" I will return !" to myself I said ; 

"Home ! — my Father's, that once was mine !" 

It is evening, Lord, and I come to Thee, 
Weak and hungry, and faint and sore. 

Look in Thy pitiful love on me ; 

Spurn me not from Thine open door ! 

3 



34 PAIN'S MINISTRIES. 



It is evening, now, and my day is spent ; 

Little of life may be mine, beside — 
Only a season of glad content, 

All my hungering satisfied ! 



PAIN'S MINISTRIES. 

Pain is our birthright. It comes to. us, as certainly 
as the days come. 

Can anything sent of God be without its blessing? Is 
there no sweet ministry even in pain ? Do we simply 
suffer and be still? Or do we suffer and grow strong? 

Suffer we must. Either our health fails, or friends die 
01 plans miscarry, or love proves false, or hope cheats, 
and whichever it be, there will ensue suffering. There 
is nothing so common as pain. There is no experience 
so inevitable. 

What the ministry of pain may be, will depend wholly 
upon how we bear suffering — upon the spirit in which 
we suffer. If pain is rebelled against, as an unjust visita- 
tion from God — if we say constantly to ourselves the 
while we suffer, " Gqp is unkind and cruel" — the minis- 
try will be a ministry of hurting. And to how many 
souls it is all this, and only this ! How T many charge 
hard things against their Maker, and go on through the 
years gathering no s -eet fruit from the tree of bitter 
blossoms ! 



PAIN'S MINISTRIES, 35 

Blessed indeed are those who can give thanks even 
amid their suffering — who can smile in God's face while 
the hurt cuts like a knife — who can feel that something 
is to come of the hurt besides scars and soreness. Bless- 
ed with a rare blessedness are they who sing softly to 
themselves though the heart be sad — who sing because 
they know that from this darkness of sorrow shall cornea 
light glad and beautiful, and, better than all, healing. 
The Angel of Pain is kinder to us than we think. 
Would that all could say with Saxe Holm : 

Angel of Pain, I think thy face 

Will be, in all the heavenly place, 

The sweetest face that I shall see, 

And swiftest face to shine on me. 

All other angels faint and tire ; 

Joy wearies, and forsakes desire ; 

Hope falters, face to face with Fate, 

And dies because it can not wait ; 

And love cuts short each Wing dav, 

Because fend hearts can not obey 

That subtlest law which measures bliss 

By what it is content to miss. 

But thou, O loving, faithful Pain — 

Hated, reproached rejected, slain — 

Dost only closer cling and bless 

In sweeter, stronger steadfastness. 

Dear, patient angel, to thine own 

Thou comest, and art never known 

Till late, in some lone twilight place 

The light of thy transfigured face 

Sudden shines out, and, speechless, they 

Know they have walked with Christ all day. 



THE ROUNDS OF BEING. 

Life is one continuous round of beginnings and end- 
ings. And yet how few days are finished ! How few- 
evenings see the morning's beginning properly ended ! 

We misjudge our deed greatly when we say it is done. 
Done in its narrowest sense it surely is ; done in its 
broadest meaning it as surely is not. A finished thing is 
put away. Do we in fact put any doing entirely out of 
our life? Would that we could, sometimes ! We should 
be better, so. 

Herein lies much of the bitterness of being — that the 
weak things done, or the things weakly done, never can 
be wholly laid aside. We hold on to them despite our- 
selves. They are a part of us, because a part of our ex- 
perience. The experience is the man, in very deed. 
You cannot put your self apart from your self's acts and 
say ' ' I arn better than these. " Self's acts are a vital part 
of self. 

Our beginnings, therefore, have only apparent endings. 
Be they for good or ill, they run on through the gather- 
ing years, and end never. It is well to think of this, 
whenever the day fades into twilight — to realize that every 
attempt made during its brief hours tells ever after, in a 
greater or less degree, upon our life ; that every accom- 
plishment, seemingly completed, goes on in influence 



THE OTHER SIDE. $J 

through the after-days, and dims not into utter fading. 
The work of this hour over-laps the labor of the next, 
and the two a.e bound together by invisible cords. So 
the life here and the life hereafter interblend ; the doing 
of the mortal will mold the being of the immortal beyond 
all possibility of changing. 



THE OTHER SIDE. 

We go our ways in life too much alone ; 

We hold ourselves too far from all our kind. 
Too often are we deaf to sigh and moan ; 

Too often to the weak and helpless blind ; 
Too often, where distress and want abide, 
We turn and pass upon the other side ! 

The other side is trodden smooth and worn 
By foot-steps passing idly all the day ; 

W T here lie the bruised ones, the faint and torn, 
Is seldom more than an untrodden way ; 

Our selfish hearts are for our feet the guide, 

They lead us by upon the other side ! 

It should be ours the oil and wine to pour 
Into the bleeding wounds of stricken ones ; 

To take the smitten, and the sick and sore, 

And bear them where a stream of blessing runs 

Instead, we look about — toe way is wide — 

And so we pass upon the other side ! 



<\8 THE SIN OF INDIFFERENCE. 

O, friends and brothers, hastening down the years, 

Humanity is calling each and all 
In tender accents, born of pain and tears ! 

I pray you listen to the thrilling call ! 
You cannot, in your selfishness and pride, 
Pass guiltless by upon the other side ! 



THE SIN OF INDIFFERENCE. 

It is an all-prevailing sin. Men everywhere seem reck- 
less of the future, indifferent as to what their eternity 
may be. They live wholly in and for the present, and 
care for naught else. It is as though they said, "This 
life only is mine and I must make the most of it. To- 
day is and To-morrow may not be. " Indeed, do they 
not say it in their hearts? 

And yet each morning and evening should make men 
thoughtful of a coming time. Each hour is indeed a 
fact, but more than a fact. It is a suggestion — a hint of 
future ages. The hour may mean much, may comprise 
much, but that which it hints of means infinitely more, 
comprises so much more that no one can comprehend it. 
Eternity is a word which the dictionary of life does not 
define ; we can not satisfy ourselves of its marvelous 
scope. 

But because we do not understand, are we excusable 
for complete indifference ? Because God is a mystery in- 



FOOLISH DARING. 39 

penetrable, may we ignore His existence ? We do, though. 
We breathe with no thought of Him who gives us the 
power to breathe. We enjoy all the sweet and beautiful 
with no regard for Him who enables us to enjoy. We 
take life and all its attendant circumstances as a matter- 
of-course, worth little or much, as fate may ordain. 

God has a right to more thoughtful regard on the part 
of His creatures. It becomes us to shake off this sin of 
indifference and concede the Creator His due. 



FOQLISH DARING. 

It is better, after all, to be a coward in some things. 

And why ? 

Because to be brave in the face of certain dangers — 
dangers of certain kinds — is to run foolish risks uncalled 
for, and from the very nature of things bound to result 
in some degree of evil. 

There are young men in the gutters to-day who were 
first brave, as all young men are, and then weak, as so 
many young men are sure to be. Their bravery worked 
their ruin. They insisted on proving dangers that they 
might have let alone in all honor — that they might even 
have fled from without disgrace. 

So there are professed Christians to-day in the Slough 
of Despond because they foolishly dared to brave dangers 



40 FOOLISH DARING. 

to their faith which they might readily enough have shun- 
ned. They could dally with vague speculations, thev 
thought, without any harm, and so dallying they passed 
under the cloud. 

Society, on all sides, is full of temptations that invite 
daring. They beckon every man and woman of us on- 
ward ; and the mistaken notion that it is brave to test 
them impels thousands to destruction. A man may 
walk a rope over the very brink of Niagara, and come off 
safely, but he is infinitely safer if he make no such 
attempt. He only who keeps away from danger knows 
what perfect security is. 

If we hold life as of no worth, and the future as not to 
be regarded, why then let us test every danger that may 
perchance wreck us. But who so thinks ? Talk lightly 
as we may of what living amounts to, it does amount to 
so much for each and every one of us that we would not 
willingly give it up. How shall we best keep it? By 
clinging to the safe side. If any life is worth aught, the 
best life is worth the most, and the best life is the safe 
life. There is no truer logic. In the face of it, then, 
can we go on testing dangers that bring no good in the 
proving ? 




OUR GUIDES. 

In a pillar of cloud by day, O God, 

And a pillar of fire by night, 
Thy presence did guide on the way they trod 

Thy people of old in flight ; 
And the wilderness way that we walk to-dpy 

More dreary and dark would seem, 
If through the deep night, or the twilight gray, 

Thy presence should never gleam. 

I am glad that they waited in days of old, 

With a promise of better tilings ; 
For my heart it is stirred when the tale is told 

By the hope and the cheer it brings. 
I am glad that they journeyed those forty years 

In trouble, and doubt, and pain, 
For the gloom of my wilderness disappears 

At thought of their final gain. 

We may never quite perfectly understand 

Why the wilderness waits for each, 
Yet we know that the beautiful Promised Land 

Is beyond it — without our reach ; 
But whatever the burdens we have to bear, 

Or however we shrink and faint, 
We shall carry ourselves and our burdens there, 

If a prayer is our sole complaint ! 

Had they only looked down in the olden time, 
As they journeyed with falt'ring tread, 



^2 HUMAN AFFECTION. 

They would never have known of the guides sublime 

That forever their foot-steps led ; 
And I pray though we walk in a faithless way, 

Though we seldom look up for lighr, 
We may never lose thought of the cloud by day, 

Or the pillar of fire by night ! 



HUMAN AFFECTION. 

The preacher said sweetly comforting things this 
morning, in regard to love as an influence in religious 
life. In certain ages, and even to-day in certain places, 
men have sought to divorce religion and affection — have 
endeavored to put the two far apart. They have acted 
upon the mistaken theory that piety means asceticism — 
that to grow in spiritual grace they must become dead to 
everything tenderly and lovingly human — must hold 
themselves separate from their kind and acknowledge no 
brotherhood with their fellows. So they have become, 
hermits, and have lived the life of the recluse. 

But all this is wrong. The best men of the Bible were 
live men, — men who cherished sweet affections and 
hesitated not to declare them. The most lion-hearted in 
their dealings with sin were the most lamb-like in loving, 
— tender and true. In the common things of the world, 
so called, those characters are of most worth in which 
there abounds fullness of affection — in which there throbs 



HUMAN AFFECTION. 43 

a large, live heart. And so in Christian life, they serve 
God best whose out-reaching sympathies compel wide 
service for humanity, — who know all men in a common 
brotherhood, and are moved by human needs to noble 
doing. 

Sometimes it happens that the husband or the wife 
hesitates to urge his or her companion on to a Christian 
walk, fearing separation must come between. But. how 
can separation come, when love to God only increases 
love to all His creatures? God is not jealous in this 
matter. Is it a sign, because He took away your child, r 
that He hated the child ? — that He was jealous of the 
love your child drew forth ? Not so. He only loved the 
little one more than you loved it — loved it so well that 
He would. spare it all possibility of sin and pain. God's 
very nature is love ; and what He implanted in the heart 
of humanity He will not rebuke. 

There are Christian homes wherein love seems restrain- 
ed, in which there is little of manifest affection. Is 
such a state of things in full accord with our Saviour's 
Gospel? Did Christ restoie Lazarus from the dead 
simply as an exhibition of His miraculous power? We 
think not. We prefer to believe the restoration was a 
tribute to the rare love of those weeping. sisters. Human 
affection is a blessed influence in this religion of ours ; 
the influence broadens and deepens in proportion as 
this affection is broad and deep, and unrestrained. Say 
you that we must not worship what God has given us ? 
Love is not worship ; it never need be. It is another 
thing in character, in very essence. Love indeed, is a 



44 MEASURING CHARACTER. 

Christian duty, and so is worship — of a certain kind : in 
so far they are kin. Unless religion warms oar heart 
toward wife and child — toward all human kind — it is 
scarcely to be trusted. 



MEASURING CHAR A CTER. 

It is not so much what we aie, as what we ought to 
be, that should be regarded. We have no right to look 
at our strict morality, our outward appearance, the name 
we have in community, and because of these pronounce 
ourselves very good, very praiseworthy. We may be 
negatively good — good because not bad — good because 
no strong temptation has overcome us and swept us away 
into sin — good because from our temperament we can 
hardly be guilty of overt crime. 

Positive goodness is another thing. We may fall far 
short of it and yet be quite respectable. It is by the 
standard of that alone that we should be judged, or by 
the standard of our possibility to attain unto it. One 
man's character is very good for him, when it would be 
very mediocre for his next neighbor, who is capable of 
excellence far exceeding any he can ever reach. The 
neighbor may have a character really commendable, as 
an average, but not by any means up to what it should 
be, considering his possibilities of progression. 



THY PEACE. 45 

For character is not simply neighborhood standing. 
There are men in good repute with their fellows who 
have not much character to boast of. They are negatives. 
They lack an essential something to make them strong 
and valuable. They are nevei workers in reform, leaders 
in good works, earnest, efficient, zealous. What they 
do is creditable, but they do so little thatthe credit side of 
the sheet shows poorly enough against the debit of what 
they might do and should do. 

We are responsible for omissions, as for commissions. 
Given the power to do, and failing to do, we are mani- 
festly culpable. Our Saviour in His parable of the Ten 
Talents emphasizes this great truth, and so earnestly that 
there is no mistaking. That which we have will not long 
be ours unless we put it to use. 



THY PEACE. 

Father, O Father ! the sunlight is vanished, 

Swiftly the evening descends on my soul ; 
Comfort and cheer from my bosom are banished, 

Billows of bitterness over me roll, 
Hearken again to my anguished petition, — 

Give me Thy peace, in the midst of my pain ! 
Grant me the grace of a patient submission, 

Bring me new hope as my courage shall wane. 



46 THY PEACE. 

Father ! O Father ! forlorn I am groping 

On in a way that is shrouded in gloom ; 
Faint is my purpose, and weary my hoping, — 

Is there no rest till I come to the tomb ? 
Answer the cry of my soul in its pleading, — 

Give me Thy peace that I stronger may be, 
Patient to follow" the path of Thy leading, — 

Patient to grope until light I can see ! 

Father ! O Father ! I'm worn with the faring ; - 

Hunger and thirst with the darkness increase, 
Hunger and thirst for the boon of Thy caring, 

Hunger and thirst for the gift of Thy peace. 
Listen again to the cry of my spirit, — 

Born of its need and its bitter unrest ; 
Bow down the ear of Thy mercy and hear it, 

Speak to the waves in my storm-troubled breast ! 

Father, O Father ! the night season thickens, 

Darker the way as I painfully grope ; 
Faith of its watchfulness wearies and sickens, 

Faints to despairing the patience of hope. 
Hear the deep cry of my agony, thrilling 

Through the long night of my wandering here, 
Then shall Thy peace, every passion wave stilling, 

Fill me and thrill me till daylight appear ! 




GOD 'S FA TIIERIIOOD. 

As the twilight comes on, the domesticity of our 
nature makes itself most felt. We are not now ourselves 
alone; we are part of that sweet family circle in which 
we sit — part of it in love and tenderness and mutual 
sympathy. Meditation is not so much loneliness of 
thought, as . thought realizing close association with 
others. 

In a certain sense we are never so near our friends as 
when we sit with them separated only by silence — when 
our hearts go out to meet theirs in that silent commun- 
ion which forbids all speech. Then indeed are we as 
children of one parent, and God is our Father, in a 
fatherhood so near and helpful, so complete and satisfy- 
ing, that its recognition lifts us gladly heavenward. 

And sitting here in the shadow, with our Home tokens 
all about us, it is comforting to whisper softly those 
sweet words of the Psalmist — "Like as a father pitieth 
his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him. " 
The human side of God's love speaks out in this. For 
is it irreverent to think of God as loving w T ith somewhat 
of human affection? Can we not gain some little idea of 
Divine Fatherhood from a comprehension of fatherhood 
not divine ? 

But God's Fatherhood is infinite in its many-sidedness, 
and on that account we fail to measure it. The preacher 



48 GOD'S FATHERHOOD. 

well said, this morning, "I will accept no man's idea of 
the whole heavens, which simply takes in the little there- 
of that he can see from his narrow chamber window." 
The infinite Fatherhood is more than it seems to us. 
The relations of one child to the parent, are not the 
relations of all the children. Temperaments differ, dis- 
positions are diverse. To you, God may seem to be 
Justice, and you may fear Him, knowing your sins. To 
another He may stand as Holiness, and impurity may 
shrink from His presence. To yet another, He may 
appear only Love, and trusting faith may lose itself in 
His great affection. 

The Fatherhood of God includes all these, and even 
more. Yet, while we must all realize, in some degree, 
God's Justice, His Holiness, we need not to keep these 
ever foremost in our mind when thinking of Him. The 
justice and the holiness need not shut us out from that 
over-brooding love which watches ever for our coming. 
God's love and pity are as broad as humanity — aye, broad- 
er than that — as broad as the great Divine Nature in 
which they live evermore, from which they freely flow. 



The world-life is a great web, and God, the weaver, is 
working it out. If we look at only a small part of it, 
there seems no design, nothing but a fragment. But if 
our eye can take in the entire web, the design is at once 
apparent. 



HUNGERING AND THIRSTING. 

Hunger and thirst are the strongest human besetments. 
Have you ever hungered almost to the point of starving, 
or been so a-thirst that the brain reeled and all your 
being seemed on fire ? Then you can conceive, in a 
measure, what a depth of meaning is hidden in that 
phrase, (i Hunger and thirst after righteousness/' 

When we are sorely an hungered, the supreme want 
is food ; when we thirst to unquenchable inward burning, 
the supreme want is drink. Just so when we hunger 
and thirst spiritually, will the supreme want be righteous- 
ness, — a renewing of the life within, a purifying of the 
soul, a cleansing from every and all sin. How seldom 
we so hunger and thirst. We have appetites for every- 
thing else but this. Debasing pleasures rarely cloy us ; 
we partake of them without loss of relish. Secret sins 
we roll under our tongues with never abating enjoyment ; 
they never weary us as daily food. 

Then why may there not be this other hungering ? It 
brings its own blessing. The promise is that " they 
shall be filled v who do thus hunger and thiist aright. 

Filled ! It is a sweet word, with no limitations such 
as rob many another of complete meaning. It is the 
same as satisfied. And who was ever satisfied in any 
other way than this? No cloying of common appetite 

4 



50 A HEART SONG. 

ever yet fully satisfied a man. Cloyed of one thing — 
one pleasure — one gratification — he invariably turns to 
something else with an irresistible longing. 

God's righteousness so rills us there is nothing want- 
ed beside. But it never fills unless longed for, hungered 
for, thirsted for. Unless it be the supreme want of the 
soul it never makes the soul inexpressibly glad. Is there 
something desired after more than this? Then we shall 
never be filled. Is there something we are willing to 
sacrifice more for than this? Then sacrifice will never 
bring its final and fruitful reward. Completely blessed 
alone are they who do hunger and thirst after righteous- 
ness. 



A HEART SONG. 

Singer, softly sing to night — 
" God is good and just ;" 

And in darkness or in light 
In Him put your trust ; 

Sing the song till earthly sight 
Fades in " dust to dus . " 

Singer, softly sing and low — 

" God is love alway ; " 
Let the heart in tender flow 

Melt the words you say ; 
Then shall you God's loving know 

Sweetly day by day. 



DIVINE ORDERING. 

Sitting here in the twilight — in the sweet uncertainty 
that seems to brood over all things — when that which to- 
day is fades into dreamfulness, and that which is to be on 
the morrow is yet unborn — it is blessed to feel that the 
world is not ruled by chance, and that Divine orderings 
link the days together. Conceive the thought of a uni- 
verse without God, and you at once fall into doubt of all 
things. There is no certainty. On nothing can you re- 
ly. Would we care to live longer under such circumstan- 
ces? 

Our every surrounding testifies to an Omniscient Hand 
and its working. There is order in the minutest partic- 
ulars, and the ordering is so perfect, so wonderfully wise, 
that we feel it must be divine. God works always with 
the most rigid exactness as to detail. A pleasant writer 
tells of a Texas gentleman who had the misfortune to be 
an unbeliever. One day he was walking in the woods, 
reading the writings of Plato. Coming to where that 
gieat writer uses the phrase, "God geometrizing, " he 
thought to himself, " If I could only see plan and order 
in God's works, I could be a believer. " 

Just then he saw a little "Texas Star" at his feet, and 
picking it up, he began thoughtlessly to count its petals. 
There were five. Counting the stamens, he found there 



52 DIVINE ORDERING 

were five of these. Counting the divisions at the base of 
the flower, he found five of these. Then he set about 
multiplying these three fives, to see how many chances 
there were of a flower being brought into existence with, 
out the aid of mind, and having these three fives. The 
chances against it were one hundred and twenty-five to 
one. 

He thought that was very strange. He examined 
another flower and found it the same. He multiplied 
one hundred and twenty-five by itself to see how many 
chances there were against there being two flowers, each 
having these exact relations of numbers. He found the 
chances against it were thirteen thousand six hundred 
and twenty-five to one. But all around him were multi- 
tudes of these little flowers ; they had been growing and 
blooming there for years. He thought this showed the 
order of intelligence, and that the mind that ordained it 
was God. And so he shut up his book, and picked up 
the little flower, and kissed it, and exclaimed, " Bloom 
on, little flowers ; sing on, little birds; you have a God, 
and I have a God ; the God that made these little flowers 
made me ! " 




THE SERVICE OF WAITING. 



Lord, Thy servants all about I see, 

In faithful service working as they may ; 

1 stand here idle, doing nought for Thee, 
And poor, unprofitable, seems my day. 

Will fruitful labor bless me, even late ? 

" They also serve who only stand and wait. " 

This is Thy answer. Give me patience, then, 
And help me all the while I waiting stand 

To know that every service had of men 
Is by Thy providential wisdom planned. 

So shall I feel, though waiting may be sore, 

That Thy great goodness hath reward in store ! 

And so may I of patient service give 

That my own being shall more fruitful grow, 

And I shall in my waiting learn to live 
A better life than haply I might know 

If, in the press of busy doing, I 

Should miss, at times, the Master standing by ! 

Lord, I thank Thee I may serve at all ! 

What need hast Thou of service such as mine ? 

1 thank Thee that Thy benedictions fall 

Alike upon all laborers of Thine ! 
I thank Thee for this comfort sweet and great — 
•' They also serve who only stand and wait ! " 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 

"For me to live isCHRisT." 

Paul said that, years and years ago. The preacher 
took up the words this morning, and turned them over 
and over until their fullness stood out strong and clear 
to our apprehension. 

Going back to the initial point, — -what is life, any wav, 
to you and to me? For us to live is — what? Gain, pleas- 
ure, personal ease, ambition gratified, tastes indulged, 
passion pandered to (God forbid !), in a word, self! 
Alas ! too often these, or a portion thereof. 

Paul meets us with an exemplary declaration which 
we should ever keep in mind — a declaration which only 
persistent self-discipline could have enabled him truth- 
fully to make — and in the face of it we must acknowledge 
how far short of real nobility our life comes. Christian- 
ity is a daily being and doing; not an 'impulse, not the 
gratification of selfish desires, or the occasional following 
out of purer promptings, but the actual living of Christ. 
Which is to say that the underlying motive of being and 
doing must come from Christ — that we must allow 
Him to fill us, and inspire us, and uplift us. 

Paul came to what he could truly say through much 
of struggle and conquering. In the natural condition 
of things for man to live is #<?/ Christ, but man's self. 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 55 

Paul had grown out of this condition, — had gone be- 
yond it, as we must go beyond it if ever we do — over the 
ruins of much prized selfish things. Have we the heart 
for such discipline ? It must come in the street, at the 
desk, in the daily duty, in the home. Our hours of 
labor must be full of it ; in the restful seasons into which 
we now and then retire it must not be forgotten. 

So the real CHRiST-life is more than a passing enjoy- 
ment. It is a perpetual self-crucifixon. Is there then 
no pleasure in it? Paul testified how much it was to him, 
albeit he had sorer trials than often \ ? isit us. Since his 
time thousands have taken up the testimony and empha- 
sized it, in every clime. Men count pleasure differently. 
But the highest pleasure satisfies most and longest, and 
the CHRiST-life means satisfaction longer and more com- 
plete than that arising from any other source. Does it 
not? Even with our little taste of it can we not give affir- 
mative answer ? 



As we give the best we have, we get the best we can 
have. The most unmistakable illustration of this gener- 
al truth is in its highest application. The rarest dona- 
tion any one can offer is himself in the completeness of 
his nature and and possession, to Christ ; and when 
this is done he receives in return the choicest blessing he 
can appropriate, the filling of himself with God. 



CHRIST'S ABIDING, 

"Abide with us ! " was the prayer of our Saviour's 
disciples on a memorable occasion. 

It was toward evening ; the night was coming on ; 
their hearts had burned within them while talking to- 
gether by the way, and it would be more pleasant with 
such a guest after the day's ending. 

It is toward evening with ns all, perhaps. Sooner 
than we think may the night fall upon us, dark and 
dreary. If not the night of death, then such a night 
as settles down only too often upon every life, when it is 
thick darkness all about. And we need to pray earnest- 
ly for Christ to abide with us. 

For when there is no comfort, shall we not need the 
Comforter? When all that is bright and gladsome seems 
shut out, shall we not long intensely for the brightness 
and sweet cheer that might be ours ? Such times will 
come ; they come to each one of us. They are inevit- 
able. Nights must complement the days, in the common 
order of nature. Whosoever is sensitive to pleas- 
ure is surely sensitive to pain, and the one will come as 
truly as will the other. "Much must be borne that it is 
hard to bear, " said one once, and each heart will echo 
the truth of that saying. 

But thank God that for the Christian there is never a 
night without its stars ! Since the early morning, so many 



CHRIST'S ABIDING. 



57 



years agone, when that star rose in the East, all who have 
sincerely acknowledged the Babe of Bethlehem as a 
wcild's Reedemer, have seen some ray in every deepen- 
ing gloom, and have felt rare comfort when life were else 
quite comfortless. 

We may not hope that Christ will walk with us as He 
walked with the disciples of old, yet may His presence 
be to us as sure a reality as it was to them. Aye, even 
more. The incarnate God was not so much a fact to 
those who listened to His preaching, and enjoyed His 
companionship, as He is now to us. He has been more 
to us than He ever was to them, because in a certain 
sense we have all that He has been to mankind through 
these eighteen hundred years. 

"Abide with us!" Breathe forth your prayer, O sin- 
sick heart ! Your evening is not far off at the most. 
Even if Christ fail at once to answer, He will return 
presently, and you shall know exceeding joy. 



THE PURE IN HEART. 

'• The pure in heart are blest," He said, 

Who on the mountain taught, 
Ere on the Cro^s His blood He shed, 

And our salvation wrought. 
O blessed words that blessing gave ! 

I hear their echo yet, 
And all their promised good I crave 

Who evil would forget. 



58 THE ENDLESS DAY. 

Yet can the blessing e'er be mine ? 

I question, full of fear ; 
I am so far from all divine, 

To all of earth so near ; 
There crowds into my life so much 

To blacken and degrade ; 
Sin jostles with so rude a touch 

Each holy help and a\d ! 

An answer comes with comfort sweet 

My troubling fear to still, 
" All promises fulfillment meet 

For those who do My will ; 
That which you long for, pray for, seek, 

Is somehow now possest, 
The words are certain that T speak — 

The pure in heart are blest ! " 



THE ENDLESS DAY. 

Scripture silence is never more marked thaa in regard 
to our future state. There is little in the way of definite 
information touching our hereafter, to be found in- the 
Bible. Much is said in a figurative sense, and this is 
indeed a solace. Just how much of it is figurative, who 
can tell? 

Of the few explicit statements made about heaven, 
theie is nothing more beautiful and satisfying than this, 
— " There shall be no night there.'' There is so much 



THE ENDLESS DAY. 59 

night here ! So often the shadows come down over us, 
snd shut us in like a shroud ! So somber grow the even- 
ings, and so few the stars ! It must be a radiant country, 
where it is daylight forever and forever. 

"Neither sorrow nor crying." Nights bring sorrow, 
frequently. Sorrow makes night, whenever sorrow comes. 
Many are the mornings bright and golden which 
hav* turned into darkest night ere the noon-tide. Thank 
God, all ye sorrowing ones, that there is coming a morn- 
ing which shall be dimmed by never a cloud ! which 
shall never fade into evening ! w T hich shall shine on 
through the ages of eternity unchanged, unchanging. 

There may be no gates of pearl, — no streets of gold, 
— all this may be figurative as regards that heaven most 
of us hope for, but let us still believe that in heaven 
there will be an endless day. Ye image-breakers who 
would spoil our prettiest pictures of the beyond by de- 
claring all revelation only figurative, spare us this as lit- 
eral. Literal our inner natures declare it. All who 
sorrow and weep would go wild with despair in their 
sorrowing and weeping, did they not have faith in an 
actual freedom from grief and tears by-and-by. And that 
which is so fully borne in upon our deeper natures is 
generally true. By some subtile prescience w r e see some- 
what of the hidden in a manner we cannot explain. So 
let us comfort ourselves in the belief which is tender and 
comforting as words of peace can be, — "There shall be 
no night there ! " 



THE ANGEL OF HEALING. 

O, all of our life we lie beside 

Some pool of Bethesda here, 
And wait for the angel its waves to stir 

With waiting that has no cheer ; 
For never the angel appears to us, 

The waters are always still, 
The healing we ever impa ient wait 

Comes never with healing thrill. 

And so by the waters we sit and sigh, 

Our being a sad complaint, 
The hope of the morning growing dim, 

The heart of our manhood faint ; 
But miracles never are wrought, to-day, 

And though we are faint and sore, 
T'is idle to linger the pool beside, 

The waters will stir no more ! 

The angels of heaven are all abroad, 

We meet them in busy marts, 
They enter the plainest of humble homes. 

They visit the poorest hearts ; 
But silent they come, and silent work, 

And all unheeding are we, 
Tho' needed the gift that they bring to us. 

Whatever the gift may be. 

Not always the want we feel the most 
Should fully for us be met : 



THE DEEPER REST. 6j 

God knoweth our need — our need of needs — 

And He will never forget ! 
Then why should we sit in complaining mood, 

In hope that is half a fear ? 
Unseen, but ready to minister, 

The Angel of God is near ! 



THE DEEPER REST. 

"I trusted too little, and reasoned too much/' said 
one, referring to a great mistake in life. "I should have 
reasoned less, and trusted more." 

Many of our mistakes grow out of this lack of trust. 
It is human to rely on reason, on self. It is hard to 
wait patiently on the Lord. Is a way clearly pointed out 
to us ? we hesitate to walk therein until we see reasons 
for the going. Is a difficult thing plainly set before us 
for accomplishing? we falter, and cast about for convin- 
cing proof that do it we must. 

And how often we argue with God ! How often we 
utterly let go of Trust, and hold only to Reason ! Yet 
it is harder to dispute with Providence, than to accept 
every leading unhesitatingly. Harder, if so be to trust 
has become a little natural to us. Harder, any how, as a 
matter of fact. Where God leads, it is easy going, if 
one go believing. When reason goes against God, the 
way is steep at the end, if smooth and pleasant first, — 



62 THE DEEPER REST. 

steep and rough, and it comes out among brambles that 
vex and make sore. 

Is absolute trust possible? To those who really rest 
in Christ, yes. Now and then some one speaks of a 
deeper rest than the many know, and such testimony is 
gratifying. What does this deeper rest signify? Ruth 
was reading in a little book entitled "The Rest of 
Faith/ 7 this afternoon, and here the story of such a rest 
was told. We have listened to the telling, orally, by 
another who struggled through much of doubt and ques- 
tioning into perfect trust. Such trust is not attained to 
in an hour. It is the fruit of long-suffering in spirit and 
repeated cross-bearing. It is the answer to burdened 
prayer. 

"Come unto me all ye that labor, and are heavy laden 
and I will give you rest." There is more here than a 
promise, though as a promise, the words are sweet and 
strong. There is- an implication, inferentially a state- 
ment, that those without rest are away from Christ. 
And beycmd question the implication is true. We lack 
the rest because we are afar off. Do we feel troubled, and 
distressed, and doubtful of the future? Then surely we are 
not near to God. To us, especially, is it said, "Come.'' 
Unto whom ? Faith knows, even the little faith we have. 
Faith believes on Him, and takes to itself, in a measure, 
the promise He has made. Yet it is only a half faith. 
It will, by-and-by, doubt, and step aside for reason, until 
shall come the deeper rest, wherein not a doubt is harbor- 
ed, no questioning put forth, but all is serenity and peace 
— the peace of God. 



TO WARD SODOM. 

The preacher's theme this morning grew out of that 
sad story of Lot — a story full of lessons for us all. 

You know when Lot divided the land with his cove- 
tous relative, he "pitched his tent toward Sodom." 
Why? Because self-interest, as he believed, centered 
there. He did not go as a missionary ; he had no hope 
of purifying that pool of iniquity. He went there for 
gain. Doubtless the Sodomites knew it, and laughed at 
any moral suasion he may have attempted. The result is 
familiar to all. 

And there are many men to-day pitching their tent to- 
ward Sodom. Men of politics, who make use of un- 
worthy means to accomplish ^political success ; to whom 
party gain is greater than the dominance of principle. 
Men of trade, who. indulge undue desires to get on, and 
who get on unduly — who sacrifice strict probity on the 
altar of mercantile success. All sorts of men, who in any 
form ignore right and just dealing and doing, and look 
first to selfish ends, last to the means which win them. 

Toward Sodom ! Sodom was laid in ashes, yet Sodom 
exists even now. In ruins centuries ago, it is still to 
thousands of people a delightful city of gain and all good 
things, wherein every desire shall be satisfied. Men go 
toward it as toward a Mecca. They dwell in it, amid its 



64 DAY BY DAY. 

vice, its varied evils, and are content. And when comes 
the cry of "Up ! Get thee out ! " they pay little heed. 
Toward Sodom ! ' ' Every road leads to the world's 
end, " read an old legend. It were sad indeed, if many 
were to reach the world's end through Sodom ; if selfish- 
ness were to overrule all other considerations, until they 
should become veritable Sodomites of a later day, only to 
perish as miserably as perished the Sodomites of old. 



DAY BY DAY. 

We should live as though doing days' works for God. 
There is no contract for long service. It is day by day, 
and day by day. Our master may have need for us 
further on ; He may not. It is not ours to question. 
Good and faithful service, now, is the thing asked. And 
to strengthen us for the day's work we should be given 
our daily bread. The prayer for it so brief, so simple, 
covers every human need. It means bread for the body 
and bread for the soul ; physical and spiritual nourish- 
ment. Is our prayer an earnest and honest one ? Do we 
really crave of God our daily food? Or are we seeking to 
satisfy human cravings from some other source? "Give 
us this day our daily bread." How many pray thus in 
the truest sense, as Christ taught? 



"ONE WITH THE LORD." 
«. 

"One with the Lord !" Will the day of my dying . 

Bring me so glad and so sweet a reward, 
For all of my waiting, my sorrow and sighing, 

As that of the making me "one with the Lord?" 

Here there is little of good in communion ; 

Little of sweets with my life interblend ; 
I long in my loneliness e'er for the union 

Which through an eternity never shall end. 

" One with the Lord ! " Dare I hope for such blessing? 

Hope for a crowning so royal as this ? 
Shall such at the last be my certain possessing? 

Shall such be the sum of my infinite bliss ? 

Recompense lesser would pay me for waiting ; 

Sorrow might smile for a reason less sweet ; 
My heart might believe it were heav'n antedating 

To thrill with a joy not the half so complete. 

Often I miss the dear face of my Saviour ; 

Often I wander away from His side ; 
Between us, too often, my sinful behavior 

Creates separation despairingly wide. 

There in the glow of the glory so golden, 
There in the mansion preparing for me, 

Henceforth, from all wanderings ever enfolden, 
O " One with the Lord ! " let me finally be ! 



JEPHTHAH'S DAUGHTER, 

Going out to do battle against the Ammonites, Jeph- 
thah, the newly elected Captain of Israel, made a vow. 
It was his ambition to conquer a peace and reign long 
over the Israelites. Moreover, he hoped to leave his 
family in direct succession to the rulership. To giatify 
his ambitious desires, he was ready to make any sacrifice. 
So he *' vowed a vow unto the Lord, and said, If thou 
shalt without fail, deliver the children of Ammon into 
my hands, then it shall be that whatsoever cometh forth 
of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in 
peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the 
Lord's, and I will offer it up for a burnt-offering." 

It was a rash vow, and a thoughtless one. The Lord 
gave him victory, and returning to Mizpeh in triumph 
the first person to greet him was his only daughter — his 
only child. Here was a shock, indeed ! To what a 
strait had his unwise vowing brought him ! In obedience 
to the vow made to obtain the object of his ambition, 
that must be done which would utterly crush his fondest 
hopes. 

We may not say of a certainty in what precise manner 
Jephthah's vow was fulfilled. His daughter w T as allowed 
to go away for two menths among the mountains, and 
bewail her virginity; and from this fact some reason that, 



JEPHTHAH'S DAUGHTER. 6 J 

instead of being literally offered up as a burnt-offering, 
she was merely doomed to a life of celibacy. But even 
this was considered a sad fate indeed among Israelitish 
women, for they all held to the hope of being, by mother- 
hood, placed in the line of the Messiah which was to 
come. And it was especially sad for Jephthah, as it 
would give the rulership into other lineage upon his 
death, which occurred six years thereafter. 

The lesson of this Old Testament narrative is a vital 
one to-day. We see Jephthahs everywhere about us, 
sacrificing all that which is dearest and best for ambition's 
sake. To accomplish one fond desire they make vows 
as foolish and reckless as was Jephthah's vow of old, 
and that bring as sad and fearful results in the end. The 
very law of human life at present seems in a lamentable 
sense the law of sacrifice. It is the giving up of the 
sweetest and tenderest affections for something which 
profiteth not at all. It is the ignoring of those most 
purifying influences and aspirations, for the unsatisfying 
peace of an outward success. Over all merely worldly 
victories some shadow of JephthahY vow and sacrifice 
should rest, to teach what such victories, gotten at such 
a cost, leally mean. They are the bitterest of Dead Sea 
apples, and have proved so to more Jephthahs than we 
can number. 



THE HYMNS OF HOME. 

Our Sabbath Evening is not alone a season of quiet, 
restful reflectiveness, but a season of sacred song. In 
the gathering twilight one softly intones, "Sweet hour of 
prayer, sweet hour of prayer, '" and we all take up the 
tender words, and they tremble into a chorus, and so we 
sing ourselves into prayerfulness and pray on in melody 
with bowed hearts. "Jesus, lover of my soul," another 
voice begins, later on, and every word of that dear hymn 
touches us to a deeper penitential love, and a sweeter 
trust in that Refuge for all our kind. 

Mayhap there is silence for a little, when the final 
cadence has died away, and we sit musing upon the 
goodness of God in giving us songs so satisfying. Then, 
presently, — out of yonder corner where the home-mother 
sits — rise the strains of "Rock of Ages, Cleft for Me/' 
and musing swells into gladness in Toplady's fine old 
hymn. After the hymn is over, and while we still sit 
here in the twilight, we think of this man whose hymn 
we have sung, and fancy it would be pleasant to die as 
he died. 

In the pleasant county of Devon, England, and in one 
of its sequestered passes, with a few cottages sprinklep 
over it, mused and sang Augustus Toplady. When a 
lad of sixteen, and on a visit to Ireland, he strolled into 



THE HYMNS OF HOME. 69 

a barn, where an illiterate layman was preaching recon- 
ciliation to God through the death of His Son. The 
homely sermon took effect, and from that moment the 
gospel wielded all the powers of his brilliant and active 
mind. Toplady became learned, but it was not so much 
his learning that blessed us all, as his hymns. 

During his last illness he seemed to lie in the very 

vestibule of glory. To a friend s inquiry he answered, 

with sparkling eye, "Oh, my dear sir, I can not tell the 

comforts I feel in my soul — they are past expression. 

The consolations of God are so abundant that they leave 

me nothing to pray for. My prayers are all converted 

into praise. I enjoy a heaven already in my soul.'"' 

And within an hour of dying he called his friends, and 

asked if they could give him up ; and when they said 

they could, tears of joy ran down his cheeks as he added, 

'•Oh, what a blessing that you are made willing to give 

me over into the hands of my dear Redeemer, and part 

with me ; for no mortal can live after the glories which 

God has manifested to my soul ! " And thus he passed 

awav. 




I 



/ SHALL BE SATISFIED. 

I NEVER here may know content, 

Or feel a full, a perfect bliss ; 
May never climb the long ascent 

And find the joy that here I miss ; 
But somewhere, in the years to be, 

Beyond the portals opening wide 
Across the lowly vale, for me, 

At length I shall be satisfied ! 

Be satisfied ! O, faith so sweet 

That helps me onward day by day I 
That guides my weak and blinded feet 

Along the upward tending way ! 
It is the star that bright and clear 

Shines downward thro' my clouded night, 
That has a tender, holy cheer 

Within its steady burning light. 

Be satisfied ! Fly quickly, years, 

&nd bring that day of days the best, 
When all the sickening doubts and fears 

Shall vanish from my anxious breast ! 
And waiting moments, whisper low. 

As far away these days recede, 
Of purer pleasures I shall know, — 

Supplies that fill my every need. 

Have patience, O my throbbing heart ! 
The moments will not slowly creep ; 



PENALTIES FOR SIN J I 

And life is only here a part 

Of one long, fitfuL troubled sleep. 
I shall awake sometime, Ah, yes ! 

This slumber shall be put aside, 
And in my Lord's fair comeliness 

I shall be fully satisfied ! 



PENALTIES FOR SIN. 

The law of compensation is just, and it is wide-reach- 
ing. There is nothing born out of naught ; there is no 
good or ill but has its recompense. Patience hath its 
reward sooner or later ; continuance in well-doing 
finally works out an abundance of joy ; and persistence 
in wickedness wins, sooner or later, the penalties which 
it woos. 

In so far as men accept grievous woes as penalties for 
their transgressions, rather than as dark and incompre- 
hensible afflictions, will they be profited and made better 
thereby. Losses and crosses, and trials and tribulations 
are common to each of us, and they are not purposeless. 
They are so common, indeed, that we forget what their 
purpose may be, and are content only to weep over them. 
We call them "dispensations of Providence, " but with so 
vague an idea of what a dispensation really is that the 
term signifies nothing, and our recognition of it implies 
simply that trust which receives because it cannot reject. 



J 2 PENALTIES FOR SIN. 

Dispensations of Providence are God's distributions of 
justice to men ; and as justice abides ever in the law of 
compensation, each dispensation unto us is but our just 
due. The laborer is worthy of his hire ; if he doeth evil 
his wages will be of evil. It is but natural, perhaps, 
that when some dearly-prized treasure, is taken away from 
us, we should murmur in sore bitterness of spirit, and 
cry out against the great Dispenser. It is but natural, 
because we are human, and love for our kind is the deep- 
est instinct of our humanity. But when we get a little 
way removed from our sorrow, — when it has become a 
thing of yesterday, as thank God sorrows will ! — we shall 
see how the crushing of our love was altogether right 
and how fully, by pride, or worldliness, or neglect of 
duty, or indifference to divine callings, we had earned 
what we have received. 

We shall see this ? Not certainly, but we ought to. 
We shall, if through saving grace our Christianity is not 
a name, but a breathing vitality, — if by the logic of love, 
spiritual and refining, and tending heavenward, we come 
to lecognize Divine conclusions as altogether wise and 
righteous. And if we do not, — if for the treasure lost, 
and the hope unattained, and the joy taken from us, we 
continue to lament bitterly, — if, instead of a prayer, our 
soul sends up daily a plaint, and says to its God ' ' Thou 
art unjust, and deal in vengeance rather than justice," — - 
then this our new and oft repeated sin will, of a certain- 
ty, bring its reward ; either here, or in the long hereafter, 
we shall pay the penalty. 



AT THE LAST. ' 

' l So He bringeth them at last into their desired haven. " 
These were the words of the preachers text one week 
ago to-night. Ruth says them over now, with a kind of 
gladness in her voice — dear, good, matronly Ruth, who 
does weary sometimes, as we all do, of the work done 
and to be done. 

' ' I was disappointed with that sermon," she remarks. 
"I hoped it would be restful to us all : but it made so 
much of the struggle and storm of life, and so little of 
the calm and peace at the last. I would rather think of 
the peace. ' 

"But we must think of the way to that, dear heart?" 
4< ' So He bringeth them ' is all the thought Ave need/'' 
she makes reply. "I care not what the way may be, 
with my hand in His ; I am surely safe, whatever storms 
may aiise, with Him as pilot. I will not doubt that we 
shall reach the haven in His own good time. " 

" And you know what your ' desired haven ' is to be ? " 
"No, I do not," and she grows more thoughtful of 
countenance. "I am willing to trust that also, to Him. 
I am just a poor ignorant mariner, sailing an unknown 
sea for a port 1 never saw. I hail no vessel outward 
bound. None who sail thither ever come back. And 
yet I am certain it is a lovely country, because my God 
dwells there ! " 



74 AT THE LAST. 

" But God dwells also here on the earth?" 

"Yes; and earth is lovely, when we see Him. The 

trouble is we only catch glimpses of Him, here ; there, 

we shall behold Him ever face to face ! " 

She stops talking, and out of the silence, presently, 

some one sings : 

Face to face ! O Hving Lord ! 
This the sweetest, best reward 
Thro' the future aye shall be — 
Face to face, to gaze on Thee ! 

Face to face ! my longing eyes 
Waif the wondrous, glad surprise. 
Here the visions fade or tire, 
Grant me there, my one desire ! 

Weak and tempted, faltering, faint, 
Hush my murmuring and complaint ; 
Look in mercy here on me, 
That I there may look on Thee ! 



It is not enough that man be saved from final death, 
in the future. He needs salvation from himself in the 
present, — salvation from all those belittling influences 
within which may not send him to perdition at the last, 
but which cramp his Christianity, and dwarf his useful- 
ness, and eat out all his manly nobleness. 



EARTH'S TWILIGHT TIME, 

Again the twilight tender breathes 

Along the hillside slopes, 
And earth in dreamy vestment wreathes 

Her promises and hopes ; 
But through the gathering eventide 

A sweet voice sings to me — 
" Let Faith through all the night abide, 

And wait the gocd to be. 
There comes a day with dawn sublime : 
The present is earth's twilight time ! " 

The song sinks deep my heart within ; 

I catch its inner thonght ; 
And all the years of darkest sin 

Are with new meaning fraught. 
I see them as a misty haze, 

In which we blindly go, 
With only stars above the maze 

We journey to and fro ; 
And glad I sing — ■' A dawn sublime 
At last will crown earth's twilight time ! " 

O doubt that brood eth over all ! 

O wearing unbelief ! 
O woes tliat on the peoples fall ! 

O universal grief ! 
Ye reign awhile, but not for long ; 

Our freedom comes at last, 
And hearts will shout a victor's song 

O'er dangers haply passed. 
Your night will wane ; a dawn sublime 
Awaits beyond earth's twilight time ! 



A MOTHER 'S PRA VERS. 

That was a very touching little recital which one lady 
made in the prayer-meeting, a few evenings since. They 
had been talking of prayer — its efficacy and power. 

'*My father is a man of seventy/'' the lady said. "All 
his life he has been skeptical about religious things. 
He has been strictly moral, but yet more or less a skeptic. 
The other day I received a letter from him, saying he had 
changed his views of the Bible, and trusted he was now 
a follower of Christ. It was his mother's prayers, he 
declared, that brought him at the very last to God. They 
had always haunted him. He could never get quite free 
from their influence. And yet his mother died when he 
was only ten years old. " 

There is a sort of everlastingness about prayer — about 
prayers. Many a petition goes a lifetime unanswered, 
which finds its answer at the very close. The prayers of 
a mother live on in the life of a child. He may go far 
into sin, but he never can get wholly away from memory 
and the past. If in childhood he heard his mother plead 
with Christ for her loved one's soul, he will always feel 
his soul is worth caring for. 

Ah, mothers ! let your children hear you pray ! If there 
be burdens to carry, and they press and weary you, 
and you faint utterly, do not forget to pray, even then. 



THE UNDERLYING HOPE. J J 

You may tire of players never answered ; you may grow 
impatient with God because of long delay; but think of 
this man of three score and ten, brought into Christ's 
love, after sixty intervening years, by the power of a 
mother's prayers. In God's good time all answers come. 



THE UNDERL YING HOPE. 

Other people than Christians ha^e hopes, — hopes 
that are sweet and tender, and fondly cherished. This is 
not a hopeless world. There is some great good to 
come, for us all. There is a universal blessing some- 
where in store : let us believe it and be glad. 

But the tenderest and sweetest hopes, outside the one 
Great Hope of the Christian, are fleeting. How they 
come and go — sweet in their coming, sad in their going. 
How they fade into dreams, and are only remembered 
with a sigh. How they lead us up to some great height 
of happiness, and then drop us into the depths. 

Only in the underlying Hope is there steadfastness. 
It never deceives. It never fails. They who build upon 
it have a firm foundation. It is broad as the needs of 
the broadest life ; it is deep as the eternities. It includes 
love undying, repose that no untoward influences can 
disturb, expectations that will by-and-by be fully met. 
It means so much more than we can understand : so 



78 THE UNDERL YING HOPE. 

much more than now, with our limited capacities, we 
can enjoy ! 

Blessed, indeeed, are they who have this Hojk. In 
their night seasons they shall see light. In their sorrows 
there shall be cheer. When the night comes down on 
those without this Hope, how dark it is ! And the 
nights come, to all. It is day with us now, mayhap, but 
as surely as the day shines, the shadows will lengthen. 
We can not always be at the noontime. Do we love ? — ■ 
the ones we love will die. Do we possess ? — our posses- 
sions will slip from our grasp. Do we aspire ? — we shall 
faint and fall, and the fever of aspiration will burn out, 
leaving us weak and helpless as a sick child. 

Yes, the night seasons must come. They are among 
the inevitables. But they cannot absolutely darken the 
life of those who build upon the Underlying Hope. 
Ever since that sorrowful evening when Christ suffered 
in Gethsemane, for all who believe on Him there have 
been stars in the night, and a glad glimmer as of the 
dawn. Do Christians ever give up in despair ? Then it 
is simply because they shut out the light, and close their 
eyes to its comfort. There is for them no need to be 
groping in the dark. All the cheer of all the ages is 
theirs to enjoy if they will. The Hope that upheld a 
Paul, and strengthened a Stephen, and sweetened the 
nature of a St. John, is ours now as it was theirs then, 



FEED MY LAMBS. 

'• Lovest thou me ? " He asked, of old, 

Who loved all men with a love divine. 
Over and over the love was told, 

And over and over He named a sign. 
** Feed my lambs, " was the one command ; — 

This of love was the sign and test; 
For through the work of a willing hand 

Will throb the warmth of a loving breast. 

" Feed my lambs! " There were lambs unfed, 

Though then the flock it was young and small ; 
And though to but one the words were said, 

They were meant for us, they were meant for all. 
And now far over the pastures wide 

His sheep are scattered — the weak and strong — 
And some have never a shepherd guide, 

Are weak and worn, and the way is long. 

" Lovest thou me ?" He asks to-day, 

Of many who walk unheeding by : 
" Yea, Lord, Thou knowest it," still we say : 

" Then feed my lambs ! " is His warning cry. 
And still they faint in the noontide's heat, 

Still amid hunger and thirst they go, — 
Shepherd of Love, in Thy care complete, 

Lead them to fields that no hunger know ! 



CHRISTIAN PATIENCE. 

"It is hard to wait! " 

Ruth has been reading again the little poem /we read 
a few evenings since, entitled "The Service of Waiting.'' 

' ' I want to see results. I want to know my life means 
something to God, by seeing He uses it. I am willing 
to do, but what has God for me ? " 

There are many who feel as Ruth feels. The natural 
longing of us all is for results. The common cry of the 
Soul is, "What has God for me? " 

Because we are all possessed of the belief that we are 
to do and accomplish visible things. We all like to 
think there is before us some work ordained of God, 
which, with God's help, we are to perform. Very few 
look upon a life without results upon the world as worth 
living. 

And we mistake, often, in waiting for what will never 
come. Having fixed our mind on some definite thing, 
come certain line of doing, we come to think God means 
no work for us because He does not provide as we expect. 
We ask the question, "What has God for us?" with a 
complaint. What we most desire has not come up for 
careful effort and accomplishment ; we are disappointed 
and would find fault. 

But we must be patient. We must exercise genuine 
Christian patience. Well, how does Christian patience 



CHRISTIAN PA 'HENCE. 8 1 

differ from patience in general ? First of all, in having a 
hope in it — the Great Hope, that is to gladden the world. 
Having a hope, it is not a patience of philosophy, of 
willing to endure, of hardened stoicism. It is a patience 
of trust. Faith lights it up continually. 

Superadded to this, it is a patience of searching. The 
heart in close sympathy with Christ will wait patiently 
for the GoD-appointed work, but it will not wait idly, 
complainingly, and say ' ' God brings naught for my 
doing." It will search ^every day, to see if perchance, in 
some unlooked-for manner, the mission has not come 
unannounced, unsuspected. It will refuse no offered 
opportunity. It will accept, in all earnestness, the 
proffered service, and serve as patiently as it had waited. 

O Lord, is heart of mine like this ? — 
In careful search lest ii should miss 
The labor Thou wouldst ask of me ? 
Or do I wait and long to see 
Some special work before me set, 
And fold my hands while I forget 
That in this waiting of to-day, 
And in this that I call delay, 
The Master's voice is sounding near, 
" \Nhy idly are ye standing here ?" 




CONVERSION TO CHRIST. 

11 Saul s agony should not be waited for nor desired, 
if God gives one Lydia's open heart/' 

Thus said the preacher this morning, speaking of the 
manner of conversion, and in the saying he touched very 
wisely a point which has troubled many souls. 

The being born again seems so hard a thing. But 
why? Because we make it so. We magnify its difficul- 
ties. We see more to get over than really exists. We 
hold change of heart to be a most marvelous transition, 
when in fact it is very simple — surprisingly simple, some- 
times. 

There are few cases like that of Saul. Few indeed 
are there who from midnight gloom, impending days to- 
gether, emerge into supreme splendor of light. It is 
seldom that God meets a man so suddenly on the way as 
He met Saul ; and none should expect to realize Saul's 
remarkable experience in their own history. 

Lydia furnishes an excellent example for all such as 
await some profound, agonizing conviction. She waited 
for nothing ; she simply believed, with her whole heart, 
nd this heart-felt belief was the being born again. The 
new birth is a change, certainly ; but it is a change from 
unbelief and doubt to perfect trust and faith. There 
can be no change without faith. The man's withered 



SELLING OUR BIRTHRIGHTS. 8$ 

arm was not restored until it was stretched forth. A 
belief that Christ can heal the soul, alone makes the 
healing possible. And when we have this belief it is idle, 
unwise, to wait long and anxiously for some harrowing 
sense of pain and sin. A degree of self-smiting there 
must be, but the degree differs in intensity in different 
cases. 

So the preacher did well to mention Saul and Lydia 
to us in the same breath — to show us how widely separa- 
ted in character conversions may be, and yet be each 
acceptable in the Divine sight. 



SELLING OUR BIRTHRIGHTS. 

There are many Esaus. Of the multitudes of men 
who go up and down among us, how many are there 
who have not sold their birthrights? 

Notwithstanding the fall, there is a birthright for every 
one. Manhood is the noblest heritage which can accrue 
to being. Purity, honor and truth were not all upyield- 
ed when the first man sinned. In these each man has 
still a share. Of these, alas ! thousands are daily selling 
their portion for a mess of pottage ! 

Esau and Jacob of old were types of two great classes 
that were to exist long after, — the one w r eak, lustful and 
foolish ; the other sharp, far-sighted, grasping. And so 



84 SELLING OUR BIRTHRIGHTS. 

long as Esaus remain, there will be Jacobs to profit by 
their weakness, their improvident. So long as one man 
stands ready to make over all that is best and truest in his 
life and character, his fellow will* be at hand eager to re- 
ceive the trust and to use it to his own selfish advance- 
ment. 

But are we all sufficiently generous to give up self ut- 
terly for the sake of others? Is our generosity wise? 
Just such spiritual loss as was Esau's may not be ours, in 
selling our birthrights, for there is no Messiah to come in 
our genealogical line; but there is an awful loss, never- 
theless. And what is the gain ? Your mess of pottage 
may be for the moment very tempting; does its flavor 
last? Partaking of it, do you see your birthright pass 
into the hands of another and feel satisfied? 

Oh, these messes of pottage ! They are of Satan's own 
mixing. They stand ready everywhere. What are they? 
We cannot tell. Some delightful dalliance may make 
up one ; some lustful indulgence may savor forth in an- 
other ; some unholy amusement, some selfish propensity/ 
some secret sin, some open -transgression, some destroy- 
ing desire, may comprise another. But at their best they 
are only pottage, and miserable compensation for that 
which they purchase. Is it not a little strange that men 
ordinarily keen at a bargain make such a losing thing of 
it in selling themselves? 



THE SONG OF MIRIAM. 

Of all that singers e'er have sung 

Since singing first began, 
No strains have gladder, clearer rung 
From human heart, from human tongue, 

Than where the Red Sea ran — 

Where horse and rider fierce and wild 
By God were overthrown : 
Where He upon His children smiled, 
And swift their foes to wreck beguiled 
By waves His breath had blown. 

" For He hath triumphed gloriously V 

And " Sing ye to the Lord ! " 
The singer chanted by the sea : 
And glad as anthem of the free 
Rang out her clear accord. 

Dear singer of the ancient time ! — 

Her timbrel echoes still 
Adown the ages. Sweet, sublime, 
Above the din of doubt and crime, 

We catch its hopeful thrill. 

Within our Edom weary years 

We wander sore beset ; 
The host of Egypt oft appears ; 
We yield at last to fate and fears, 

To grieving and regret. 



86 THE SONG OF MIRIAM. 

But waiting there in doubt and dread, 

Our own Red Sea beside, 
Some ray of silver sunlight, shed 
From God's clear sky, shines on our head, 
And gloom is glorified ! 

And listning then we hear the song 

They sang that time of old, 
When God was faithful, swift and strong 
To help the Right, to crush the Wrong , 
And faith finds deeper hold. 

For God is God to-day, as then . 

He minds His Israel : 
Above all battlings fierce of men 
He waits in patient power, as when 

The host Egyptian fell. 

Dear singer of that distant day ! — 

Her Edom had its springs 
Of bitter waters by the way : 
And we by Marah's side may stay 
Oft in our wanderings ; 

But though tlie way be long and sore, 

This side the Promised Land, 
Some song of cheer forevermore 
May thrill us, that we sang before 
We came to desert sand. 

Some yesterday of song we knew, — 

Some hour of joy and praise 
After a Red Sea's journey through 
To peace ; and God to-day is true, ■ 
However dark the w?ys : 



THE MASTER TRUTH. 87 

And just beyond the wilderness 

Our Land of Promise lies ; 
Its plenty we shall soon possess ; 
Its beauty shall our morrow bless 

With comforting surprise ! 



THE MASTER TRUTH. 

Truth has been master since the Master's first preach- 
ing of it. It will be master in all time to come. It can 
not be crushed. The defection of followers and suppor- 
ters can not dangerously weaken it. It is upheld by liv- 
ing divine grace. 

What does it matter, then, if some one fall whom the 
world has looked up to as eminently a disciple of Truth? 
Falls are common. Men are but human, and the great- 
est may be most human. The greatest may sink into 
ways of sin and shame. But if one or a thousand great 
upholders of Christ's Gospel lapse from the true path, 
shall we be foolish enough to think that Gospel suffers 
irreparable harm? 

When this dear religion of ours had few supporters, it 
stood up under defection and betrayal greater than can 
possibly befall it now. There was Judas— one of the fav- 
ored Twelve. A cruel blow was his; and yet the new 
faith survived. There was Peter — he was tempted and 
he fell ; and yet the new faith lived on, and grew marvel- 
ously in the hearts of men. 



8S THE MASTER TRUTH. 

A man may have much of the grace of God in his 
heart, and for all this he may yield to sudden tempting. 
A man may profess love for Christ, and kiss him to be- 
trayal. Is he the annihilator of our faith ? Far from it. 
He falls ; but honest men everywhere will simply pity his 
weakness or scorn his falsity. They will not say that 
Christ is a myth, or His Gospel a fiction. And if they 
were to say it, what then ? Fools have said the same 
these hundreds of years, and men have fallen from purity 
time and again, and yet Christ is not a myth, and His 
Gospel is not a fiction, and people go on believing. 

It is sad — very sad — to see any one betray his faith. 
The influence of such betrayal may be wide-reaching, 
and the injury done may be great. But to say that be- 
trayal is terribly disastrous, is idle talk. There can never 
be a worse, a more awful betrayal than that of Judas ; 
and doubtless the weak and troubled disciples thought it 
disaster dire. Instead, it held the world's hope. It 
wrought out the best that life can know. It was a never- 
ending blessing just begun. 

Shall we then excuse betrayal and palliate a fall, be- 
cause irretrievable ruin does not come of it ? By no 
means. To fall is to sin ; to betray is criminal. Truth 
is sinned against in either case. Judas betrays himself 
when he betrays and turns against his Christ. He must 
pay the penalty. If only himself be hurt, even, there is 
no excuse, since no man may excusably sin against him- 
self. And always the sin reaches past the sinner, past the 
second party sinned against, and harms community. 
That it is not a fatal harm, matters not, though it is the 



CHRIST'S COMPASS/OX. 89 

one comforting thing Christians should remember ever — 
that no man's weakness mortally weakens the church of 
Christ. Such has never been the case ; such never can 
be the case. The church of Christ is not founded upon 
man ; does not depend upon man for its continuance, 
and can not be overthrown bv man. 



CHRIST S COMPASSION. 

Perhaps there is no more really comforting thought, 
in relation to Christ's compassionate love, than that it 
was discriminative. "Christ loved men in the mass," 
said the preacher this morning; "but He also loved 
men as individuals.'' 

We have numerous illustrations of this discriminating 
regard. Among them all, none is so sweetly tender as 
that of the widow of Nain. Christ was upon the high- 
way, accompanied by many followers. He met another 
company, and their errand w r as evident. They were go- 
ing to a burial. It was not an unusual thing to meet 
such a sad procession. 

Yet to our Saviour it was an unusual case, common 
as it might seem to all about Him. Here was a woman 
following a loved one to the grave ; and this was sad in- 
deed, and in a general w r ay was sufficient to call forth 
sympathy. Bnt it was worse than this. "She was a 



9° 



CHRIS T ' S CO MP A SSION. 



widow." She had followed a bier, before. She had 
wept for her companion ; now, alas ! she must weep for 
her sole support — her only son ! and this was saddest of 
all. 

It was, indeed, a case where discriminating comfort 
would not fail of expression and endeavor. The great 
heart of Jesus went out in tender compassion. His Di- 
vine power found manifestation in the command ! ' Arise ! '* 
And the sorrowing mother found a Friend where least 
she expected one, a Helper when to human ken help was 
no longer possible. What a joy was hers ! How she must 
have gone back rejoicing, who had come from her home 
in tears ! 

It is ever with the needy, whose faith is strong, as it 
was with the widow of Nain. Christ will not fail in His 
discriminative compassion. On the highway of life He 
meets men and women now, as He met them ages ago, 
and knows their peculiar want. We like to believe that 
when blind Bartimeus called out to Him from the road- 
side, "Thou son of David, have mercy on me!" our 
Saviour knew him for the sightless man he was, and not 
simply as one of the common mass, voicing a common 
need. To the blind of to-day His ear is open still, and 
He will not fail to hear. Hearing He will not fail to 
bless, and blessing, the needy shall go forth rejoicing, 
who now weep on the way. 



CHRIST'S HUMANITY. 

It is an evening for tears. One year ago to-night — or 
was it two, or three, or five? — you wept over a dear face 
waxing cold, and dropped a hand out of yours from 
which love's answering pressure had fled. How well 
you remember it ! Will you ever forget ? Would you 
ever, if you could ? Would you even now put from you 
these memories so sadly sweet, that bring dimness to 
your eyes and fresh sorrow to your heart ? 

You thought the first pang of separation hard ; you 
feel scarcely different after all these months or years of 
loneliness. And yet you have now none of those bitter, 
fault-finding feelings against God which took possession 
of you at the beginning. You have come 'to realize 
somewhat of God's kindliness even through His afflict- 
ing — samewhat of His great overbrooding love and wide- 
reaching sympathy. 

In the first overwhelming of your grief you thought 
hard things of your Creator, hard things of your Saviour. 
You said in your heart — "He is but an indifferent Sav- 
iour who does not save me from this depth of woe. " 
You know now how much you wronged Christ. In- 
different? You could hardly say that of Him again, 
though you stood by another open grave. Indifferent ? 
You read one little verse in your Bible, as you have read 



92 CHRIST'S HUMANITY. 

it many times of late, and you acknowledge how very 
human our Saviour was — how His heart went out in a 
common sorrow with those who were sorrowful. 

' ' Jesus wept. " 

Thank God that there is such a verse in the Book of 
books ! Jf Christ had been divine alone, we might 
never have had it. But those two words tell the whole 
story of His humanity. Because weeping is such a com- 
mon lot, it was necessary, so it seems, that Christ 
should weep also. If not necessary, it was iitting. And 
the fact that our Saviour wept with those who wept, 
brings Him nearer to us all evermore. No proof is 
needed to establish Christ's divinity, even though men 
have thought it their duty to write books full of argu- 
ment ; there might have been call for proof to substanti- 
ate His humanity, without this fact. 

So you accept the story so briefly told, as it is accept- 
ed by many another, and your sorrow is not so sharp a 
thing as once you held it. Because Jesus wept, weeping 
is somehow sanctified. Grief is not so crushing since 
you know that He felt it, even in the very phase so famil- 
iar to you. And through your tears you are thankful for 
a tearful Saviour, and you feel that God who gave such 
an one must be, and indeed is, very good, though He 
smite you. 



THE FA THER'S VOICE. 

O stubborn heart of mine, be still \ 
God speaks to you, to day ; 

In silence wait His holy will — 
In silence Him obey. 

Your sore complaint forget awhile, 
Your longing and your pain ; 

And in the sweetness of His smile 
A perfect peace obtain. 

So near to Him, O heart of mine ! 

That we His voice can hear : 
Our being is a thing divine, 

With love its heavenly cheer. 

For love is in His every tone, 
And in His presence shines ; 

He speaks in love, and love alone 
His every act inclines. 

Then listen to His loving call, 

O heart of mine, I pray ! 
"Let doubt that broodeth over all 

By Him be chased away! 

Let Faith a cherished guest abide, 
Where unbelief has dwelt, 

And patience tarry by her side, 
And Love all discord melt. 



94 AN APPROPRIATING FAITH, 

And so as pass the waning days, 
At length, O heart of mine ! 

Your song shall be a psalm of praise, 
Where song is all divine ! 



AN APPROPRIATING FAITH. 

'•It was a good sermon from a good text/' says Ruth 
to-night, referring to the morning's discourse. " f The 
Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want/ I was glad when 
the preacher chose such words as these, for a hope and a 
comfort. I was gladder yet, even, when he showed how 
David's was only like what every follower should feel 
now — an appropriating faith. The Lord was more than 
a shepherd to Israel's king — his shepherd; He is more 
than a shepherd to you and to me — even our shepherd. 
And because He is ours, in this sense of personal appro- 
priation, we shall not want. " 

Ruth's face is not visible, in the twilight, but we fancy 
gladness glows upon it, and we know that her voice 
tiembles with a thrill of joy. 

Ah, yes ! The faith of the Psalmist should typify our 
faith to-day. It was as sweetly personal as if David knew 
he and God made up the world. The same individual 
trust and acceptaticn should dwell in us. Why not? 
Has the Lord changed in all these years ? No ; He is 
the Everlasting. Have our relations to Him altered? No; 



AN APPROPRIATING FAITH. 95 

we are His people to the end of time, — His people, 
and the sheep of His pasture. As He led those of old, 
so likewise shall Fie lead us. The still waters, the pas- 
tures green — lo ! these are unchanging as the Eternal 
Father, and to them we shall as surely come as came the 
weary ones who knew them at last henceforth and for- 
evermore. 

And it was a rare assurance that grew out of David's 
appropriating faith — "I shall not want. " Here was no 
shadow of doubt, no thought of questioning, nothing 
but a strong, sweet certainty, to^ rest upon and be up- 
held by. The same certainty may be appropriated- and 
enjoyed by us. Why not? Since God is our God — since 
a risen Saviour rose for us, as well as for the great world 
at large — since we are individually responsible for taking 
hold or letting go of a faith that binds us to an individ- 
ual Lord — so should we realize that all the fruits of a 
personal faith are ours as truly as though none other ever 
shared them, as though in God's clear vision no other 
mortal stood. 

There is a blind, • helpless faith, that believes without 
tasting, or testing, or knowing, — a vague trust in abstract 
truths, and a weak recognition of comprehensive Omnis- 
cience without any positive comprehension at all. It con- 
fesses God as the Supreme Ruler, but knows nothing of 
Him as the Shepherd who knows His sheep. It prays 
to God as a wise and beneficent Creator, but never ten- 
derly supplicates Him as the one Father and Friend 
who sees every heart, appreciates every want, is lovingly 
mindful of each individual need- David's was a faith 



9 6 IMPE TUO US CHRIS TIA NI TV. 

wiser and more helpful. If our faith be truly wise, and 
of the best type, we shall appropriate and know God as 
none other exactly can, and He shall be to us, in some 
subtle sense, what He is to no other trusting soul. 



IMPETUOUS CHRISTIANITY. 

Peter was the impetuous apostle. We all know how 
his impetuosity cropped out, at times, — how he was 
most ready to declare love for his Master, then the first 
to deny Him. It was an inherent fault in his nature. 
He flared up at a spark. As susceptible to sleep on that 
memorable night of the Agony as his fellow disciples, he 
was prompt enough on the succeeding morning to cut off 
the ear of one of the band whom Judas led to the be- 
trayal. His acts were as impetuous as his faith, and this 
came near to causing his death on an occasion familiar to 
all. 

And Peter the impetuous was the type of a large class 
of Christians to come after him. Faith, belief, devotion, 
action, were with him a matter of impulse ; and they are 
so still with very many. Perhaps the proportion of im- 
pulsive faith, belief, devotion and service is as great to- 
day among Christ's followers as it was in the day of His 
ministry. Warmed by an atmosphere of loving nearness 
to God, thrilled by the prayers of faithful ones, many are 



IMPETUOUS CHRISTIANITY. 



97 



eager to declare their fervent affection, — to asseverate 
stoutly that a denial of their Lord is impossible. But 
out amid the scorners, where Christ is jeered at and 
mocked, where to cling to Him may be to suffer con- 
tempt and ill-treatment, the impulse of denial is as ready 
as any other, and the denial is most emphatic. 

Impulsive service is a poor service, at best. Its good 
effects are neutralized by the cold seasons intervening, 
when all devotion is forgotten, all faith apparently dead. 
But is impulsive service rare ? Is it not part of almost 
every Christian life ? — the bane of every Christian church ? 
We draw the picture strong, possibly ; but it does seem 
to us that Christian endeavor is largely characterized by 
impulse. We do much for a little time, when strongly 
moved, then relapse into inertia and discontent, if not 
utter carelessness. Our charity flows out to bless the 
needy only when melted to a white heat by external fires. 
Giving is not a matter of principle, but of impulse ; 
doing springs not from an underlying purpose to serve 
God and our fellows, but is the result of outside influen- 
ces, bearing so powerfully upon us for the time being 
that we cannot resist. 

All good impulses should be cherished, — all will con- 
cede that. But life should not be all impulse, — nervous 
and uncertain. And our following after Christ should 
not be like unto Peter's, "afar off/' 

7 



UNREST. 

O.God of peace ! soothe me to inner calm ! 
This wearying unrest 
So racks and wounds my breast 

I long for Thine own sweet anointing balm ! 

To feel Thy fingers touching all my care 
To tenderness of peace, 
Would make my longings cease : 

Father ! bend Thine ear and hear my prayer ! 

1 hold so much of every earthly bliss 

I should not e'er complain ; 
And yet I pine in pain 
For some dear blessing that I want, and miss. 

I can not name it, Lord ; I do not know 

If it should come to me 

That I could clearly see 
It was the blessing I had prayed for so. 

So blind am I ; so vaguely and so dim 

Is my desire defined 

As yet within my mind ; 
And yet I fancy it is known to Him ! 

Then fill, Lord ! my emptiness of heart ; 

M-y weary longings still 

With Thine own holy will, 
And grant that peace which shall no more depart ! 



COURTING SIN 

We cannot avoid being tempted. In some form or 
other the spirit of evil comes to us every hour of our 
lives, with his magnificent promises. If we listen to 
them, half smilingly, are we not really courting sin ? 
To go voluntarily to baleful influences, and put ourselves 
in their power, is little worse than to give ourselves over 
to those influences, without effort to the contrary, when 
they come to us. There is no excuse for half the defeats 
we meet with while endeavoring to walk uprightly. We 
surrender to temptation with never an arm upraised in 
defense. With not even a whispered "Get thee behind 
me, Satan/' do we meet the tempter. And yet we be- 
moan our sinfulness ; we make weak resolves to stand up 
more manfully in the future. All this is well. Repen- 
tance is very essential. But unless we cease tacitly cour- 
ting sin by receiving it kindly when it visits us, of what 
avail are all our bemoanings, our tears, and our resolu- 
tions? Our visitois measure their stay by the character 
of their reception, and sin is no less sharp-sighted than 
they. 

Then it is wiser to put sin behind us, always, rather 
than let it stand before us as an equal. The language 
our Saviour used, when tempted, has a deeper signifi- 
cance than we are wont to give it. He said " Get thee 



IOO COURTING SIN 

behind me." And why behind P Was it not to be wholly 
out of sight ? Sin is hardly ever without a glamour over 
it, concealing its deformity, oftentimes rendering it abso- 
lutely beautiful. Satan may have a cloven foot, and the 
et ceteras commonly credited to him, but he is frequently 
exceeding fair to look upon. And the heart receives its 
impressions too often through the eyes. On that account 
it is dangerous, in the extreme, long to look evil in the 
face. Unless we voluntarily bid it get behind us, away 
from our seeing, it may become as an angel of light, 
blinding our vision completely. 

And alas ! how often our thought plays truant, and 
goes off kite-flying, like the veriest idler, in beautiful 
fields w T here all beauty hides a secret sting ! Into those 
lovely reaches we follow, no longer waiting for sin to 
come to us that we may be won, but going out after it, 
though we scarcely realize this, and wooing it in its own 
chosen haunts. And we go, and go again, until the way 
becomes worn and familiar, and the beauties throw off 
their outward seeming and pierce us with their sharp, bi- 
ting realities. Then, wounded and sick at heart, we feel 
that it is not enough to pray " Lead us not into tempta- 
tion/' but that we must continually and in all earnestness 
declare ' ' Get thee behind me, Satan ! " 



"AND THEN?" 

We remember reading, years ago, of a man who was 
so sparing of his words that he seldom uttered more than 
two consecutively, and consequently was known as "Two 
Words." Favorites of his, and most often made use of, 
were these, short and questioning, — lc And then ?" 

Every man, woman and child utters them frequently, — 
they are indeed the text of many a hope, many a promise, 
many a prayer. Childhood will grow out of its childish- 
ness, and then — all the joys and successes of manhood 
will gladden it. Youth will step out from its youthful 
annoyances, and then — will come only halcyon days, full 
of sunlight and song, and glad fulfillments. Manhood 
will brush away the clouds that envelop it, and then — the 
long awaited rewards will surely be realized in maturer 
years. Manhood's prime may wear itself out in noble 
endeavors, but Old Age will reap the fruits, and then — 
content will render the hours peacefully sweet. Old Age 
will be ended by-anc^-by, and then — 

And then — what ? 

It is not enough that we dream over the two words, — 
that we use them as pleasant agencies to conjure up 
brightness for the future. To paint beautiful pictures of 
the "Good time coming" is well, because none have a 
right to shut the sunlight out of their lives, and the sun- 



102 "AND THEN." 

light streams in ever through the open door of To-mor- 
row ; but to shut our eyes to our possible destiny, — to 
look resolutely away from a destiny that must be inevit- 
ably ours, — that is not well. It is the height of folly, or 
else the climax of cowardice. 

Thousands are dancing through life thinking lightly of 
the morrow, with "And then" upon their lips, but never 
repeating it in its deep and solemn suggestiveness. Poor 
fools, that make a minuet of the week, and glide down it 
careless and unconcerned, for them, as for all others, 
there will come a Saturday night with its silent hush, and 
the sun will go down, and the stars will come out, and 
the soul will remember itself — and then — 

As we have each our by-and-bys, that we fill wiih those 
things we love best, so is there for all one great common 
By-and-By, and it is surer than those little ones w r e think 
most of. Who says ' ' by-and-by " with a thought of all 
its meaning ? We hang upon being as by a thread, and 
yet we plan with an "I will" as though the future were 
ours to do with as we please. And some day we shall 
see our mistake. Some day we shall say "I will," and 
our wills shall be as mere breaths ; and it shall be then, 
O Father, "as Thou wilt;" and we shall close our eyes 
to all around us and go out somewhere by a way we 
know not — and then P 



"COME UNTO ME!" 

" Come unto me ! " I stand far off and lonely, 

And hear the words so sweet. 
Dear Saviour ! but to meet Thy greeting only 
Grant me swift feet ! 

" Come unto me ! " The air is full of voices 

That call me loudly hence. • 

Help me to feel that most Thy call rejoices 
With recompense. 

I see before me, onward ever luring, 

The prizes rich and rare ; 
But each shall fade. Thine only is enduring, 
Beyond compare. 

Thine only. What Thou freely givest ever, 

The thing no man can earn ; 
For which no pain, nor any long endeavor, 
Can make return. 

Thine only — now ; but when I fly to meet Thee, 

In love, as Thou dost call, 
Then as with tender, broken heart I greet Thee, 
My own, my all ! 

Thy Rest ! Dear Saviour, make me for it eager, 

And never satisfied 
With all that I may win, so poor and meager, 
From Thy dear side ! 



KNOWING GOD. 

As we sit in the twilight, a solemn silence falls upon 
us all. 

"Be still, and know that I am God !" Ruth by-and- 
by quotes. And then she adds : 

"Is silence just another name for submission, I won- 
der ? Last evening Mrs. Bird came in, and we talked of 
her great loss. The dear boy she buried a year ago lives 
freshly yet, in her grief. She can not give him up. 
She will not believe that the Lord did well in taking him 
aw T ay. It grieved me to hear her talk, and I have been 
troubled about it all day." 

"She is not an obedient scholar in the school of sor- 
row," one of us makes reply. "'Be still and learn, 1 
might be said wisely to her. We hear many things in 
our moments of quiet, which miss us in the hours of our 
speech. We can not both speak and hear at once. " 

"True," answers Ruth, "but have you quite caught 
the meaning of those words I quoted? As I see it, we 
are not left to learn that God is God ; we are simply to be 
still and know. There is something fairly divine in the 
assumption which this command implies. In twilight 
times, or times of darkness coming over the soul, we may 
just keep silent and rest in a sure knowledge. In our 
submissive stillness we shall know what by no common 
process of accquirement could we learn. To be restful 



KNOWING GOD. I05 

before God, as I take the thought into my heart, is ab- 
solutely to know Him. 

" And the knowledge will never make us glad, I fear/' 
she continues, " if we do not feel subdued to perfect 
peace. Nobody can find out God by searching, or by 
scientific investigation, or by noisy discussion. He is 
not revealed to men through visible demonstrations. It 
is only in soul-quiet that the soul, looking upward, 
grows wise. We have so much turmoil in life, and we 
spend so many days and years in perpetual unrest, no 
wonder we fail to know God as we ought. I prize the 
twilight hours more than once I did, for their quietude, 
and their holy intimacies. God does come near to quiet 
souls, I am certain. We can know Him if we will but 
be still, and let Him visit us in blessed recognition." 
"You hold, then, by your personal relation to Him?" 
"Why not ? If I am to know Him, it must be a per- 
sonal knowledge, made possible through a personal inti- 
macy. For me to know God is to know Him for myself, 
and of myself, and not to become a mere partaker of an- 
other's knowledge. I may not profit by another's obe- 
dient silence, while my own soul cries out in doubting 
complaint. I could not teach Mrs. Bird of my happy 
knowledge, when she cherished the turmoil of her grief, 
and would not be still that she might know. Whoever 
believes may enjoy the blessed certainty of knowing, but 
before knowing, in the truest, sweetest sense, he must 
hush all his strivings of soul, quiet all his troubling fears, 
and come, so, before knowledge, into peace. And the 
best of it is that God will help him to do this, that so 
doing he may know ! " 



PATIENCE WITH SELF. 

In the prayer meeting the other night we were consid- 
ering the subject of Patience. And one brother remark- 
ed that we ought to be more patient with ourselves — that 
having done a wrong thing, and properly confessed to 
God and self that it was wrong, we should not continue 
to upbraid self, and be miserable. Then he cited the 
case of a little child, in illustration. 

The little one had been guilty of some misdeed. She 
had asked her father's forgiveness, and it had been freely 
granted. Still she seemed a little ill at ease. " Have 
you told God how you feel about it?" her father asked. 
No, she had not, but she went away by herself, and 
pretty soon returned, satisfied, her countenance all aglow. 
"Is it all right now? " the parent inquired. "O, yes ! " 
was her answer. 

She had confessed the fault, and she lost no time in be- 
ginning again. She did not go about with a sober, dejec- 
ted countenance, bewailing her sin, making her life mis- 
erable on account of it. Even so should we be patient 
with ourselves. We sin often. If, after the sin is con- 
fessed and repented of, we go around for hours or days 
together reproaching ourselves, encouraging impatience 
toward ourselves, we sin again. We should lose no time 
in reproaches, which ought to be spent in beginning a new 



PATIENCE WITH SELF. \0*] 

course of life. It does not mend the wrong to put our 
souls in perpetual penance for it. Better that we atone 
for it by a speedy setting about the course of right. Bet- 
ter that we take up a vigorous line of good conduct, 
than that we sit down idly and sorrow over the unhappy 

slip- 
There is a lesson here which many should heed. 
Healthful Christian life is not promoted by brooding 
over, and doing mental penance for, the sins of the 
past. Before us there is a work to be done. Let us do 
it. What though we failed once, or even many times? 
The failures do not excuse us from fresh attempting. 
The bitterest reproaches we can heap upon self will not 
expiate for faults or failures of the days gone by. Let us 
be good to ourselves, then, and having properly and 
freely repented of that which we can not recall, let the 
dead bury its dead. So shall we live happier lives. So 
shall we be better fitted for all that each day brings. 



Religion is belief in God and His revelations ; an ac- 
ceptance of the Divine as ruling over the Human ; a faith 
in the spiritual as working in and through the material. 
And to be religious is to acknowledge God's power and 
man's weakness, human need and Divine helpfulness; 
and to confess, in heart and life, that the sin of the fall is 
only annulled in the expiation of the Cross. 



THE TOUCH OF FAITH 

Lord ! Thou walkest in this earthly press, 
As once Thou dids't before ; 

Thy presence hath the same sweet power to bless 

That it possessed of yore. 
Then let me come anear, O Lord, I pray ! 

Nor my one wish condemn ; 
Let me, like her of old, approach to-day, 

And touch Thy garment's hem ' 

My deepest want Thy healing grace can m^et, — 

grant that grace to give ! 

My poor unfinished life Thou shalt complete 
If I but touch and live ! 

1 faint amid the many striving sore ; 

1 fear me lest I fall ; 

O turn Thine ear. dear Saviour, I implore 
And hear my pleading call ! 

touch of faith ! I feel its healing power ! 
My weakness groweth strong ! 

1 rise renewed in life, this favored hour ; 
I praise Him in my song ! 

Dear soul-sick ones, behind Him closely press ! 

He gladly healeth them 
Whose faith can see Him through all earthliness 

And touch His garment's hem ! 



PSALMS IN THE NIGHT. 

The singing hearts are ever a blessing unto themselves. 
A song is joy-giving. He who can sing sweetly in the 
undertone of his inner nature, carries a rare pleasure with 
him always. Hard things appear to him easy ; heavy 
burdens seem light ; sorrow knocks often, it may be, but 
often goes away, seldom enters. 

And when it does enter — when the clouds come and 
the sunlight is hidden — when the soul walks down into 
the night and sees never a star ; what then ? Ah ! then 
thrice blest is the singing heart. If it can sing psalms at 
such a time, the stars will shine. Dawn will quicker 
come, the sunlight sooner re-appear. 

Sweetest of all songs are the psalms in the night. 
David sang with the most touching tenderness when in 
the gloom of deepest affliction. The heart may wail a 
misererz over its dead or its dying, but even that will be 
sadly sweet, and will have a hope in it. The saddest 
song is better than none, because it is a song. 

Every song soothes and uplifts. It is just possible that 
a song is as good as a prayer. Indeed, a song of the 
pure kind recognized in Scripture, is akin to a petition, 
while it is also in the spirit of thanksgiving. The " sweet 
singer of Israel " wedded his sincerest prayers to melody, 
and wafted them upward on the night air from his throb- 
bing heart. 



HO "NO I/IGHT THERE." 

Through God's grace we can all sing psalms in the 
night. Whatever brings the shadows, we need not be 
wholly surrounded by them. We can sing under the stars ; 
or, if they be hid, until they come out and smile down 
upon us, and cheer us to a gladder strain. There are 
dark nights for us all ; we are in them now, or have just 
found the dawn, or, perchance, are just entering the twi- 
light. But there is a psalm for every over-creeping 
gloom • and if the heart but take it up and chant it, the 
dreariness will surely vanish, and there will come in its 
stead hope and light and cheering warmth, and we shall 
grow glad again with the morning. 



"NO NIGHT THERE:' 

O dreariness of earth ! O mocking pain ! 

O day to darkness going ! 

You hold but little in your empty showing ; 
The end of all will be my greatest gain. 

There is within my limited foreknowing 
For all your want and woe a kindly bane. 

The w^ays cf earth are dark ; the sunset lies, 

Unrobed of all its beauties, 

A shadow black and chill o'er all our duties, 
And shutting out the smiling of the skies. 

Our better nature in the shadow mute is, 
Or speaks but faintly through some quick surprise. 



"NO NIGHT THERE." Ill 

At intervals, perhaps, may clearly shine 

The stars, in friendly gleaming, 

As if to woo forgetfulness in dreaming, 
And drown the earthly in the half divine ; 

Yet memory sleeps only in our seeming, 
And consciousness breathes on, but makes no sign. 

Our souls beneath the darkness sit alone 

In solitary places, 

And keenly scan the few by-passing faces, 
In hope some newer light has outward shone ; 

But find thereof no sweetly cheering traces, 
For yet is the all-perfect day unknown. 

It waits somewhere beyond the evening hills, — 

That day without an ending. 

Pray God our steps are thither ever tending ! 
Its glory on our vision bursts and thrills, 

The rarest radiance through the darkness sending, 
As dreams of dawn appear when fancy wills. 

endless day ! O triumph over night ! 

radiant glory rarest ! 

Of earthly dreams thou art the best and fairest, 
And I shall drink of thy supreme delight ! 

1 know that God for all my being carest ; 

1 know His sunshine yet shall bless my sight ! 

"" No night there ! " Shall I ever sadly miss 

The stars above me glowing? 

What answer has my limited foreknowing? 
Some subtle prescience tells me only this : 

The stars within my crown, effulgence throwing, 
Will satisfy me through an endless bliss ! 



MATERIALIZING HEAVEN, 

Now, when the tendency of all things earthly is ma- 
terialistic, it is perhaps not strange that there exists a de- 
sire to materialize spiritual things, and to make of 
Heaven only another earth, possessed of every circum- 
stance known here except sin. But there is danger in 
this attempted materializing ; and if such speculation be 
carried too far, resuks may prove sad indeed. However 
much we may want to know what lies beyond the grave, 
and just what that Heaven is like to which many of us 
hope sometime to go, curious queryings concerning it 
will avail us nothing. To human knowledge God has 
set a limit. "Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther," is 
the limitation ; and the ' ' thus far " is the grave. Through 
the green curtain of the sod we may not peer. Whatever 
awaits beyond that, — whatever of detail or surroundings, 
— we shall know only when the green curtain swings out- 
ward for us to enter. 

And yet God has given us some beautiful foreshadow- 
ings of Heaven, — some outlines of the picture, to be filled 
in hereafter. They are sufficient for faith ; they ought to 
answer all doubtful speculations of every kind. "For 
we know that when He shall appear we shall be like 
Him." It is possible to see in these words an existence 
quite different from that some recent writers presume the 



MATERIALIZING HEAVEN. II3 

good will enjoy when they have put aside mortality. It 
is diffcult to believe Him as taking part in very material 
pleasures; and if we are to be "like Him, " we shall 
hardly cling to what we here count our chief joys. The 
peace and gladness of Heaven may spring from the using 
of earthly appliances, with our natures purified, and the 
using thereby rendered spiritual ; but we prefer to sup- 
pose that in the Better Land there will be found better 
agencies of happiness, and that, taking on immortality, 
we shall take on immortal surroundings. 

"I shall be satisfied when I awake with Thy likeness." 
Here is the only picture of Heaven that is necessary to 
our trust while yet on earth. "J shall be satisfied! "' 
This, with nothing added, would indeed be Heaven, — 
satisfaction. No more vague unrest ; no more anxious 
longings after something out of reach ; no more doubt, 
no more pain. The promise of a full and final content 
should be our sweet assurance through all smugglings, — 
all inclinations to doubt, or speculate upon, the life im- 
mortal. Let us not wonder whether the content will 
come through one means or another. It is enough that 
it will come ; and that in it and of it we shall find heaven- 
ly rest, and that joy which shall compensate for every 
earthly ill. 



" VANITY OF VANITIES:' 

Ruth read the first chapter of Ecclesiastes aloud, this 
afternoon, and kept on until she read the- whole book 
through. When she had finished the reading, one of us 
said — 

' ' After all, Solomon was wrong. Life is not merely 
a vanity and a vexation of spirit. The wise man spoke 
unwisely. He had not gwen life a fair test" 

Now, as the twilight deepens, we think over the Preach- 
er's words, and say quietly to ourselves, Yes, Solomon 
was wrong. His sweeping declaration, " Vanity of Van- 
ities, all is vanity," is not true. Life is more than a 
vanity. 

And one of the reasons why we think Solomon was 
wrong, lies in the fact that a later Preacher taught so dif- 
ferently. There was born a babe, in Bethlehem of Judea 
— born not of the purple, but cradled in the manger, 
and brought up amid the disciplines of life. His youth 
was not passed in the enervating atmosphere of luxury. 
He knew what manly labor was. Doubtless he stood at 
the carpenter's bench at least a part of those thirty years 
before his preaching began. 

And when at length he spoke to that narrow Judean 
world, and through that to the wide brotherhood of man, 
what a different ring had his words from those of the wise 



" vanity of vanities:' I I 5' 

man of old! "Blessed are the poor; blessed are they 
that mourn ; blessed are the meek ; blessed are they that 
do hunger and thirst ; " blessed, blessed, blessed — in 
what ? In that which was only vanity ? We can not be- 
lieve it Blessed in some life to come? That also, be- 
yond question ; but before that, blessed here. The 
present life is but a preparation for the life hereafter. 
Think you the preparation would be all vanity, when the 
ultimate end is to be so real it can never know ending? 
"Man dies as the beast dieth," said the complaining 
king. " I am the resurrection and the Life !" said one 
who was greater than he. Solomon was wrong, and 
Jesus Christ was right. 

How many tributes Christ paid to the worth of life I 
Would He have stood in the way of that widow's sorrow 
with His "I say unto thee, young man, arise ! " if it had 
been raising one up to vanity ? Standing at the tomb of 
His dead friend in Bethany, whom He loved, would He 
have bidden ' ' Lazarus come forth ! " to nothing more 
than vanity? Never! For the sick whom He healed, 
for the dead whom He restored to life, He saw better 
possibilities. And ever since Christ lived, life is some- 
how sanctified for all. Motherhood is a tenderer thing, 
because Christ was born of a woman. Brotherhood is 
worthier and nobler, because Christ lived as our Elder 
Brother. Fatherhood is more loving and sympathetic, 
because Christ was the son of man and the son of God. 
Cares are less perplexing, because Christ bore bmdens. 
Sin is less to be feared, because even Christ was tempted, 
and overcame. Grief is less bitter, because "Jesus wept ! ,y 



AT THE ALTAR! 

Lord ! what sacrifices can I render. 

Unless I give Thee here 
A broken heart, a spirit bowed and tender, 
A faith that knows no fear \ 

1 bow before Thine altar, lowly kneeling, 

And raise my sins to Thee ; 
1 know that from Thee there is no concealing ; 
For Thou canst all things see ! 

In mercy look, my many sins beholding, — 

In mercy look, I pray, 
Upon my soul its sinfulness unfolding, 

And wipe all sin away ! 

O Loid ! I thank Thee that Thy love fails never, 

And while I longing wait 
Give me to know that all my own endeavor 

Must fail me soon, or late ; 

Give me to feel Thy love so warmly shining 

Within my hardened heart, 
That all my life, as by some new divining, 

Shall into gladness start ; 

Give me to sense that, broken-hearted, living 
Has henceforth something worth, — 

That in my loss of sin some wondrous giving 
Sprang sudden into birth ; 



AT THE END. 117 

Give me to see that through an humble spirit, 

Along a lowly way, 
The blest shall come to that which they inherit, — ■ 

Thine own Eternal Day ! 



AT THE END. 

An old Italian proverb says: — "Every road leads to 
the world's end." It says truly. All ways of life run on 
to the same place — the place of graves — the end of the 
world. 

But the end of the world is not alike for all, and we 
shall find it pleasant and kind or the reverse, according 
to the manner of our approach. With what a difference 
do men approach the close of life ! Content and joy 
abide with some ; wretchedness of spirit sits heavily upon 
many others. 

We pity the Solomons, who have come nigh to the end 
with doubling and complaint, and only a calm religious 
philosophy for comfort. We are glad for the Davids, 
who, not having grievously sinned, or having sincerely 
repented of their sin, can say in all the earnestness of 
undoubting trust — "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall 
not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures ; 
He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my 



Il8 AT THE END. 

soul. He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for 
His name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the val- 
ley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil ; for Thou 
art with me, Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me/' 

Beside the way of Gods leading there is more than 
canity. To such as walk in the paths of righteousness 
an abiding vexation of soul never comes. The rod and 
staff of the Great Shepherd are a sure comfort, to such 
as find them a comfort at all. They who are led by 
"the still waters" come to an end of the world that is 
pleasant as the green pastures of their earlier finding, 
and in which are only tender revelations of love and 
care, and sweet surprises of song. 

Ah ! if such were but the world's end for all ! Alas 
for the many who draw nigh to theirs in fear and tremb- 
ling, and feel a twilight's shadows enveloping hope and 
trust in gloom ! Alas for the many who are absolutely 
without hope, — who have never learned the dear lesson 
of trust that is so faithful in blessing^— who come nearer 
and nearer to the end with indifference or recklessness, 
and pass beyond affrighted and dismayed ! Happy in- 
deed are they whose faith is fixed, whose expectations 
are properly based, — to whom the end of the world is as 
peace after battle, as gain after loss, as fruition perfecting 
hope, as wages after toil, as reward after waiting, — whose 
hearts have never a complaint, but are full of glorying, 
and who go out of life as into a great joy ! 



HAVING AND HOLDING. 

Our title to things in this world is poor, at the best. 
And yet how many of us act as though a warranty deed 
covered all possessions — as though what we hold we have 
beyond any power to dispossess. 

"Shrouds have no pockets/' is a sermon full of pith. 
It strikes right at the root of selfishness. Accumulating 
for the mere love of it is smitten sharply by the one sen- 
tence. To accumulate for worthy purposes is right 
enough ; to accumulate that one may take pride and 
pleasure in the fancied having is quite another matter. 
The family must be provided for — and to that end ac- 
cumulating is well. But to heap up for the love of it — 
to store away because it is pleasant to think one has and 
holds — this is not well. 

"Give it to the poor" was one time a test of personal 
Christianity. Did the Christian stand such test? Alas ! 
no; "the young man went away sorrowful, for he 
had exceeding great possessions." And to-day, as 
then, the voluntary giving up of acquired riches troubles 
men more than any one thing beside. " I have ; I will 
hold," impiously declares the rich man. "It is not my 
fault that want is abroad in the land. I have made my 
own money; others must make theirs."' So the rich 
man clasps his purse more closely, and congratulates 



120 THE HILLS OF GOD, 

himself that mortgages are not perishable property and 
his possessions are secure. 

"I have ; I will hold." Poor falsehood ! How ill it 
will serve in the end ! " I have ; I must lose," would be 
the truer rendering, and ''I will give away and so will 
keep," the best rendering of all. For it is only that 
with which we bless others that really blesses ourselves. 



THE HILLS OF GOD. 

' T is like a narrow valley-land, 
This earthly way of mine ; 

Before me, clad in glory grand, 
I see the hills divine — 

Those heights the saintly long have trod- 

The Hills of Hope, the Hills of God ! 

Though mists of doubt enfold me in, 
Though through the dark I grope, 1 

The upward path my feet may win 
That mounts the heavenly slope ; 

And walking through this lowland here 

I know the Hills of God are near. 

Unto them oft I lift mine eyes, 
That oft with tears are wet, 

And through the mist they calmly rise 
Where sun no more shall set. 

To me forever grand and fair 

The Hills of God— my Help is there ! 



OUR LITTLE ILLS. 

The little ills that flesh is heir to, — how they crowd 
into oui life ! How they chafe us ! How they rob love 
of its sweetness, happiness of half its joy, sunlight of its 
clearest brightness, and glad content of its peace ! How 
they tire us with dull sounds, how their endless repeti- 
tions cut deep into our very being ! Ah, these little ills ! 
When life becomes a dreary thing, and we stumble by 
the way, it is often not because of any great burden 
which we bear, but because of many little ones. 

And it is strange how we will persist in taking them 
up needlessly, — how we search for them, as it were, and 
are surprised almost if perchance we find them for a time 
slipped off. The most serious drawback to our enjoy- 
ment is this, — that we will not be happy when we can, — 
that we go about continually hunting after some petty, 
goading thing to prick us into unrest. So when we 
might possess our souls in peaceful patience we are fret- 
ting and worrying all the day long, and besides being 
wretched ourselves are the cause of miserableness in 
others. 

The relative heed paid to little ills is astonishing, when 
we come to think of it. A man will bury his wife with 
real Christian resignation, though he loved her fondly, 
who would fume about the house like a mad lion were 



122 OUR LITTLE ILLS. 

one' of the children to misplace his cane or spectacles, or 
did his excellent companion chance to neglect his shirt 
buttons. And a good mother, fond of her children as 
any mother could be, will bear the death of one with 
noble, womanly fortitude, when to find that her thimble 
is missing, or that the servant has allowed a loaf of bread 
to burn, will set her into a high-voiced complaint fearful 
to listen to. 

We have known very fair Christian people to fly into a 
violent passion because they did n't happen to agree on 
some little point of argument ; and we have seen those 
whose cieed was "swear not at all" get very near cursing 
because some thoughtless person left a door open, or trod 
on their toes, or said some keen, biting word on purpose 
to annoy. Yet they thought themselves very exemplary, 
and in many respects they were. But they were not 
heroes. They never would be, though they should do 
some deed worthy of fame. The Christian hero governs 
himself. He bears daily vexations without wincing. The 
little ills which none can avoid he laughs off, and in so 
doing grows the stronger to grapple with those which 
must be grappled. And if there were more such we 
should see more smiles in the world, and the days would 
be glad with a brightier cheeriness. 



MY MANNA. 

Dear Lord, I hunger ! feed me, here, 
As Thou didst feed Thy Israel ! 

And let me hear The words of cheer 
That on Thy waiting servants fell ! 

The bread of Heaven were sweet to me ; 

No longer let me hungry be ! 

I eat of other food, and faint — 
It does not all my want supply ; 

My soul in plenty makes complaint, 
Is famished, and must eat or die ! 

Dear Lord ' a little manna send, 

That I be strengthened till the end ! 

Alas that I so long have fed 

Upon the husks of empty pride ! 

That of Thy sweet and living bread 
My soul its portion has denied ! 

Alas that thus so late I plead 

My hunger and my bitter need ! 

Yet, Lord, Thou hearest, even late ! 

Forgive the pride that would delay ; 
And while in weakness here I wait, 

Give me my manna by the way ! 
So shall I eat, and stronger be 
Because my food was had oi Thee ! 



"BY THEIR FRUITS." 

"Ye shall know them by their fruits/' the Saviour said 
in His wonderful sermon on the Mount. And henceforth 
this was to be the test of Christianity everywhere. Is 
it not a just one? Can there be anymore reasonable 
judgment of aught that was intended to be useful, than 
that which is here implied? 

" Every good tree bringeth forth good fruit ; " but O, 
the evil trees, how thickly they are scattered about ! Out 
in our gardens we have trees that look well, — are thrifty, 
luxuriant even, in their growth. Every spring they open 
a wealth of blossoms, and every summer or fall they are 
barren of all fruit. We, ourselves, are not unlike them. 
We show a wealth of blossoms in good intentions, pur- 
poses and promises, but these seldom mature into the 
rich, ripe fruit of fulfillments and performances. 

A tree that blossoms and bears no fruit, is as worthless 
as one that does neither. Just so with our lives ; they 
may bloom very beautiful with promises, and yet be as 
valueless as though never a bud of a promise had beauti- 
fied them. Blossoms are sweet, in themselves, but far 
sweeter for that which is hidden within. They are glad 
prophecies of the golden harvest. Good intentions, pur- 
poses, and the like, are very pleasant things, but pleasant 
only because they contain a promise. If the promise 



HUMANITY'S DANGER. 



125 



fail, then are they as chaff blown lightly before the wind. 

Let us be frank w r ith ourselves, and ask how many of 
our blossoms become fruit. It will not do to trust that 
they may ripen in a season far ahead. There will be a 
harvest time, by-and-by : so much is certain. It may 
find us with never a promise realized. And then ? " Every 
tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and 
cast into the fire. " Is the answer sufficiently plain ? 

The season of the ingathering of grain and other prod- 
ucts should be an impressive sermon to us. It breathes of 
fulfillments, on every passing breeze. Through it the 
voice of the year is sweetly saying, — f 'In the seed-time 
I gave you my promises ; behold how they are redeemed. ,T 
Let us listen to the earnest lesson. Let us nurture the 
blossoms of good with tender care, that the harvest of 
fruit may prove a bountiful one. 



HUMANITY'S DANGER. 

Sin is degrading, and its consequences are terribly sad. 
In its manifold forms it is telling fearfully against the weal 
of mankind. It can not be too zealously crushed out. 
It can not be too faithfully fought at any time and at all 
times. 

Yet the great danger of humanity is not in sin. The 
most dangerous danger of all that beset the human heart 
is in unbelief. Sin drove the first pair out of Paradise ; 



126 HUMANITY S DANGER. 

sin banished Lucifer from Heaven ; but there is a paradise 
to-day for all who will seek it, just as surely as though 
sin had never existed, and they can find Heaven just as 
certainly as though no sinner had ever been expelled 
therefrom. 

There has been atonement for sin, and what remains is 
for all to accept that atonement. In the way of such ac- 
ceptance stands unbelief. It takes possession of all 
hearts. Secretly, or with a bold front, it dominates over 
nearly all lives. In ways subtle as varied it is spreading 
its baleful influence abroad, and is seeking the overthrow 
of all truth. Preached from popular pulpits, disseminat- 
ed through popular periodicals, it is gaining an establish- 
ed foothold in Christian communities. 

Open infidelity is not half so fatal in its effects as this 
vague, subtle unbelief. Men shrink in alarm from 
atheistic denials of God, who dally willingly with ques- 
tionings which in the end lead to something not a whit 
better. "The fool hath said in his heart there is no 
God ; " many accounting themselves wise have asserted 
throughout life, " There is no Saviour — for me," and 
have finally met the fool's fate. Sin did not work their 
condemnation, — neither sin in the abstract, nor any par- 
ticular sin, save the sin of unbelief. Faithful believing 
would have gained them that, the existence of which 
they so unwisely denied. 

"How oft would I have gathered you," was said of 
those stubborn and rebellious of old. It is a live saying 
to-day. Under the wings of protection and preservation 
we may be gathered, if we will. But will we? Do we 



LITTLE BY LITTLE. 



12 7 



so much fear an end past all hoping as to accept the kind- 
ly offer ? Or are we stiff-necked and obstinate in our 
unbelief, and do we utterly refuse all tenders of mercy 
because, in our short-sightedness, we may not see clear- 
ly just how those tenders come to us, 01 just what is the 
character of Him by whom they are made ? 



LITTLE BY LITTLE. 

Little by little the skies grow clear ; 
Little by little the sun comes near ; 
Little by little the days smile out 
Gladder and brighter on pain and doubt ; 
Little by little the seed we sow 
Into a beautiful yield will grow. 

Little by little the world grows strong, 
Fighting the battle of right and wrong ; 
Little by little the wrong gives way, 
Little by little the right has sway ; 
Little by little all longing souls 
Struggle up nearer the shining goals ! 

Little by little the good in men 
Blossoms to beauty for human ken ; 
Little by little the angels see 
Prophecies better of good to be ; 
Little by little the God of all 
Lifts the world nearer His pleading call I 



BELIEF IN CHRIST. 

That was a golden text of the preacher's this morning 
— "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be 
saved." 

And what the preacher said in relation to it was all 
worth remembering. Especially did some portions of 
his sermon seem pregnant with vital truth. He consid- 
ered the character of this enjoined belief, and gave hints 
touching the same that it were well for us to think over 
often. 

Saving belief is not a belief in fact, not belief in the- 
ology, but belief in a person. The searching question 
Is not "On what have I believed ? " but " On whom have 
I believed?" Christ has Himself declared — "But I, if 
I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me. " It is not a 
creed that saves, not a doctrine, but a vital personality. 

Thousands of men believe in Christ as a historical 
fact, who have yet no saving belief. Something more 
than this is needed. Christ in history is a crucified 
man ; Christ in the heart is a risen Redeemer. And it 
is this accepted, indwelling and personal Christ that 
saves men. He saves those who trust in Him, not those 
who simply acknowledge Him as one who can save. 
Acknowledgment is not enough, in the abstract ; be- 
lief is not enough, in theory. The acknnowledgment, 



BELIEF. 



I29 



the belief, must be practicalized in an act of absolute 
trust. 

Soul-saving is purely a business transaction between 
the soul-saved and the Saviour. There must be an ac- 
tual transfer of the soul, the life, to the Saving One. 
This cannot be made as an experiment. There can be 
no contingent upyielding that is of any avail. Self yields 
itself for all time, or the transfer is of no use. If we go 
to Christ savingly, we must go with singleness of pur- 
pose, desiring nothing but to be made His forever. 

Then it is a personal belief in a personal Christ. 
" And Thou shalt be saved/' the text has it. Let us note 
that. "Thou" Here is the promise for each. There 
is no restriction. It is as much for the vilest as the most 
moral. It holds as good for the thief on the cross as for 
Nicodemus. Thank God that He sent His son into the 
world to preach so sweet a personal gospel ! 



BELIEF. 

O doubting heart ! cling still to your believing ! 

There is no sweeter way, 
No solace that so surely soothes your grieving, 

No dearer hope, to-day ; 
Nothing, when death is yours, 

That so endures. 

9 



i.3° 



BELIEF. 

All creeds of men are straws to clutch at, only, 

- When comes the final end, 
And leave us cheated, at the last, and lonely, 
Without a saving friend : 
But full and firm belief 
Stops every grief. 

O doubting heart ! these are not idle phrases, 
Nor pretty tricks of speech ; 

Beyond our present, with its winding mazes, 
The truth in them does reach ; 
Let us accept it here, 
And prove it dear ! 

For prove it must we all. There comes an ending 

To every earthliness ; 
Time spares not any in its final sending 

Away from earthly press ; 
How early we must go, 

We can not know. 

Then doubting heart, give doubting over, ever, 
And to your trusting cling ! 

For faith is better than is man's endeavor, 
And sweet reward will bring ; 
God says give Him your trust, 
And God is just ! 




EVERY-DAY PHILOSOPHY. 

There are silent educators in every life. Each new- 
experience is a teacher ; each old and familiar experience 
but repeats an old and familiar lesson with a new em- 
phasis. And the intent of all this is w r hat? To take 
away the superfluous in our natures ; to crush out certain 
inordinate desires ; to displace impatience and over- 
anxiety with a quiet, calm philosophy w T hich can meet 
all disappointments with resignation, and which is a more 
sure guarantee of happiness than any outward circum- 
stance. 

More than any other influence does the Christian re- 
ligion conduce to this every-day philosophy. Skepti- 
cism, in exceptional cases, may w-ear a peaceful, unim- 
passioned front, and may manifest less impatience over 
the daily vexations than the average Christian does ; but 
in the majority of instances unbelief is ever troubled at 
heart, is not at peace with itself, and so cannot be at 
peace with ordinary surroundings. Moralism may sur- 
round itself w r ith an air of serenity, but the first storm- 
breath disturbs it, and all the outgrowths of its being 
sway to and fro like young tree-tops in a storm. 

And yet greatly as a fervent Christian faith tends to 
give placidity to one's nature, there are many more than 
passable Christians who have no particle of this excel- 



x 3 2 



E VER Y-DA Y PHIL OSOPH Y. 



lent philosophy of which we are speaking. At the least 
trifle they are off their balance. At a word they fret, 
scold, worry, fume. A disappointment sets them nearly 
wild. A great sorrow makes them frantic with grief. 
A deep wrong maddens them with pain. They are the 
touch-me-nots of the human family, and fly all to pieces 
at the slightest provocation. 

Are there excuses for such ? Doubtless. Nature is 
responsible for their unfortunate condition in a large 
measure. But nature can be greatly made over ; one 
must blame one's self mainly for any lack in self-disci- 
pline. Moreover, love of Christ in the heart is the 
power w T hich re-moulds the natural man, and which if 
but aided in its work will accomplish noble things. In 
most cases the lack of every-day philosophy arises simply 
through personal carelessness. Men don't try to check 
natural impulses. The first thought of the mind, the 
first promptings of the heart, are yielded to. Afterwards 
the penitence may be deep, even unto tears, but it brings 
no fruit. That is the trouble. To err and then repent 
of it is the daily experience of every one who fails to ac- 
quire Christian philosophy, and it is sorrowful to think 
that such experience, repeating its teachings, impresses 
no lasting lesson. 



IT IS WELL, 

The air has home some tender words, 
As sweet as melodies of birds, 
And benedictions soft and clear 
Have trembled on the waiting ear ; 
But never sweeter accents fell 
Than Faith has uttered — " It is welL" 

Hope sits through each to day and waits 
The opening of to-morrow's gates, 
And Patience wearily abides 
The veil that each to-morrow hides ; 
But whether good or ill foretell, 
Faith sweetly whispers — " J t is well." 

Alas for him who never hears 
The words that quiet doubts and fears ; 
Who, bent with burdens, plods along 
With never any heart for song ; 
Who murmurs, come whatever will 
To bless or chasten— '/ It is ill ! " 

How dark the night when shine no stars ! 
How dull and heavy being's bars 
When through them Faith can never see 
Green fields beyond, and liberty ! 
How sad t v e day when wailing knell 
Is louder than the '• It is well ! " 

As soothing as a soothing balm, 
A grand and yet a tender psalm 



134 COMPLETENESS OF FAITH. 

Is floating ever on the air, 
Is blending with the mourner's prayer, 
And saddest plaints that ever fell 
Find answer in the " It is well ! n 



COMPLETENESS OF FAITH. 

Only the other day, at the burial service of one famous 
the world over, a famous singer sang " I know that my 
.Redeemer liveth." He over whose coffin the melody 
was breathed forth, had murmured the same words, in 
one of his last lucid intervals, as though they held rare 
comfoit. 

And do they not? Spoken in the completeness of 
faith which they really illustrate, they have all the com- 
fort words can have. ' ' I know that my Redeemer liveth. " 
There is no doubt whatever, here. It is absolute knowl- 
edge. The "I know" covers all questioning. Others 
may doubt, " I know." Others may be in the dim dark- 
ness of unbelief; here in faith's clear sunlight "I know" 
and am content. 

" I know that my Redeemer liveth." Here is the sweet 
individuality of the utterance, which makes it most com- 
forting. It is my Redeemer that lives, not simply anoth- 
er's. He is as much mine, as though in all this wide 
world no other person lived, or had in Him an interest 



THE TWO MALEFACTORS. 1 35 

and a faith. That He is the Redeemer of other men I 
know, but my rare blessing lies in the knowledge that 
He is my Redeemer. 

"I know that my Redeemer liveth" That He died, 
we know ; that He rose again we are certain ; that He 
lives "I know " also, and in the knowing I am supreme- 
ly glad. He lives, and I may see Him by-and-by. 
Thank God that life has its variety of emphasis — that 
new meanings lurk under the old forms of words, that 
now and then we catch glimpses of clearer light and 
broader beauty ! In the completeness of a faith which 
takes hold of all emphatic expression, and makes it its 
very own, let us go bravely on, until the knowledge of 
faith shall find its culmination in the knowledge of sight, 
and " we shall see Him as He is." 



THE TWO MALEFACTORS. 

When Christ was crucified, two thieves died with 
Him, on the cross. In their death was a lesson for all 
the world. What was the lesson ? 

One gave up his long held faith of the Jews — gave up, 
with it, the sympathy of all his fellows when sympathy 
would have been sweet indeed — gave up his past of sin 
and crime — gave up himself, and died recognizing and 
recognized by the Son of God. 



I36 THE TWO MALEFACTORS. 

The other railed at Christ, scoffed Him, doubted 
Him, and died as he had lived — a wretch, with sin in his 
heart and reviling on his lips. 

Here were two men, both of whom had been far from 
the Saviour in life, both of whom were confessed crim- 
inals before the law, both of whom were meeting a just 
end at the hands of the law's executors. One came so 
near Christ, even at the very last, as to feel His touch of 
divine tenderness — to find joy and rest in His saving 
love. One, though at the Saviour's very side, within 
sound of His voice, within sight of His forgiving treat- 
ment of those who maltreated and insulted Him, remain- 
ed a doubter, continued his scoffing, and went straight to 
perdition. 

There are others who live as did these malefactors — 
careless, sinning, wretched lives. They meet Christ as 
did those two, at the .very gate of death. For some it is 
a lesson of hope that one malefactor's ending teaches. 
They may hold aloof from saving grace and love until 
the very last, and then come as near it as did he — so near 
as to feel it, to yield to it, to be saved by it. For some 
others there is a sadder lesson. They may find in their 
final nearness to Christ a nearness of judgment. They 
may die reviling, as he died, — unsaved, as was he. 
"This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise" said our 
Saviour to one malefactor. The other heard no such 
tender promise addressed to himself. Wickedly he had 
lived ; wickedly he died. And many have died in like 
manner. How many more will die as the fool dieth? 



LOST LITTLE ONES. 

I sometimes look beyond the gateways golde*n, 
When sleep comes silently, 

And there within the Saviour's arms enfolden, 
The little ones I see — 

The little ones that in the glad time olden 
Were kissed by you and me. 

I see no longing in their tender faces, 

Upon their dimpled cheeks 

No touch of care has left its tearful traces, 
No pain for pity speaks ; 

They laugh and sing in happiest of places, 

Through all the Sabbath weeks. 

I wonder if amid their gleeful singing 

Perchance they ever miss 
The mother's soft caress around them clinging, 

Her frequent; loving kiss ; 
Or if they wait her coming for the bringing 

Of yet a sweeter bliss. 

And then, when sleep has fled, and with it dreaming, 

I lie with open eyes, 
And weep to find so real a thing was seeming, 

In sorrowful surprise, 
Till thro' the darkness there does come a gleaming, 

From out the smiling skies. 

And softly then a voice sayith to my weeping, 
" 'Twas not a dream you had, 



1^8 IS THERE A SAFER TRUST? 

Your little ones are safe within My keeping, 
So wherefore, then, be sad ? " 

And o'er my heart a holy joy comes creeping, 
That makes me strangely glad. 



IS THERE A SAFER TRUST? 

Now that skepticism, in so many varied forms, is as- 
sailing our Christian religion, it is eminently proper for 
all mankind to inquire, — Is there anything more certain 
and sure in which to trust ? The wish to trust some- 
thing or some power outside of and apart from itself, is 
inherent in the human heart. To throw aside all trust is 
to blot out any hope in the future, and limit existence to 
mere mortality. Few will be satisfied by so doing. 
Almost every individual's future, self-sketched, has in it 
something beyond mortality's boundary, and is contin- 
gent upon some kind of religious belief. That belief 
which promises most certain fulfillment is the one most 
earnestly desired. 

And while the enemies of Christ seek to do away 
with all faith in Him as the personal Saviour of humani- 
ty, and sneer at that grand plan of salvation which has 
the Crucified Son of God as its central figure, do they 
offer any faith better and more desirable, any scheme 
which shall hold a surer guarantee of redemption ? 
Claiming Jesus the Nazarene to have be^n but the car- 



IS THERE A SAFER TRUST? 1 39 

penter's son, only human, though a man of exceeding 
cleverness, do they present for our consideration any 
mediator between the All-Father and ourselves more di- 
vine than He ? Is there, in the whole range of skeptical 
philosophy, any theory, promise or hope to which, turn- 
ing away from God and the Redeemer we believe He 
sent into the world, the soul can cling with more of sat- 
isfaction and peace ? 

These questions can not be easily answered in the 
affirmative. Skepticism, trying to tear down the truest 
and most vital part of Christian faith, has never offered 
to build up a truer and worthier one, — has never develop- 
ed any rock upon which mankind may rest with the as- 
surance that it will prove more solid and enduring. 
Skepticism, atheism, deism, infidelism, and all other 
isms preaching aught beside Christ and Him crucified, 
have as yet failed to do what the simple Christian faith 
has done, — hold out a hope of eternal life and sustain 
the believer through manifold afflictions until the hope 
lose itself in fruition. The Tom'Paines, professing to 
consider God a myth, and the future life a delusion, have 
approached the grave in most abject fear, saying of death 
— "It is all a leap in the dark." To all mankind, then, 
the fact that no safer trust is offered especially commends 
itself. To weak and doubting believers it should be a 
source of peculiar comfort. Doubtings will come at 
times ; the faith will grow faint ; the enemy will come in 
like a flood ; and for a little while unbelief will obtain 
the mastery. Yet not for long, if only we remember 
that unbelief yields no more cheering harvest, — that 



I40 



IN SHADOW. 



when we give up our hopes in Jesus Christ we gain 
nothing more steadfast and abiding, — that outside of 
His blood and righteousness we find no surer prophecy 
of everlasting joy. There is no clearer light for our feet 
on earth than that which His gospel sheds ; no brighter 
ray of promise illuminates the tomb than that His pres- 
ence therein lent to it ; and nowhere can we receive a 
sweeter assurance of final resurrection than in His victory 
over death and the grave, and His ascension to the 
Father's presence. 



IN SHADOW. 

My heart is dumb, to-night. 
I sit beneath the shadow of affliction, 
And hear no whisper of a benediction 

Upon the heavy air ; 
I can not speak to God, His face is covered 
By this thick cloud that o'er my life has hovered, 
I can not breathe a prayer, — 
My heart is dumb, to-night. 



My heart has found its speech ! 
I saw the shadow parting just above me, 
And saw the face ot Him who once didst love me- 

Who loves me even still ; 
He spoke to me, so lovingly and tender 
That all my doubt was lost in faith's surrender, — 
"Thine, Lord, and not my will ; " — 
My heart had found its speech ! 



CHRISTIAN INDIGNATION, 

It behooves us to bear patiently with much that we 
could wish corrected, but much else demands righteous 
indignation on our part, and if it be not manifest we are 
recreant to our duty as Christians. 

Certain forms of sin are becoming popularized, which 
should not be conceded the courtesy of silence. Things 
of little moment in themselves, but far-reaching in their 
influence and wide-expanding in their development, are 
constantly coming up, against which we should declare 
emphatic protest. Christian duty, more often than we 
seem to think, requires of us Christian speech — speech 
earnest with hearty indignation. 

The great agent against evil is, and will be, public 
opinion. How is public opinion to be what it should be, 
if the best part of the public make no effort to purify it? 
If as Christians we fear possible allegations of cant, and so 
refrain from saying what we believe in regard to certain 
social phases, have we any right to cry out against popu- 
lar sentiment in secret ? Society is sadly tolerant of abu- 
ses and tendencies that disgrace and shame our enlight- 
enment ; has our individual Christianity done all it can 
to reform these ? 

Reformative work is individual work. It must begin 
with individual declarations, proceed individually, and 
end in the betterment of individual life. This process pu- 



I42 OUR SAMSONS. 

upon his liberty. He could xesist the men of Philistia ; 
rifles the mass. Every Christian, then, should be a re- 
former. That which we believe unworthy, or degrading, 
we should instantly rebuke. Against that which tends to 
work evil, we should earnestly declare. We should, in 
fact, cultivate such a loathing for all sin, that we can not 
keep silence before it. Christian indignation has its spe- 
cial duty to perform, and if that performance be not fre- 
quently met there is something vitally wrong. 



OUR SAMSONS. 

Samson of old had splendid opportunities. Set apart 
for a noble work from his birth, and gifted with power 
to perform that work, he might have been the Deliverer 
of his people, and made for himself a history grand in- 
deed. But what were the facts? Relying on his own 
wonderful strength he dallied with sin. He made a jest 
of life. He *set himself about nothing profoundly earn- 
est, and worthy his attention. 

Voluntarily he put himself in his enemies' hands, con- 
fident that he could escape at will. In gratification of 
his lusts he entered Gaza, the stronghold of the Philis- 
tines, and went out only by taking the gates with him. 
Later, still following out his lustful pleasures, he tarried 
with Delilah, and amused himself by permitting attempts 



OUR SAMSONS. 



43 



but a woman's blandishments compassed his ruin. An 
overwhelming faith in his own might was the mischief 
underlying all. Though he broke the green withes, and 
the new rope, and escaped with the web woven in his 
hair, he fell at last, weakly, miserably. 

His life and his death have their counterparts every- 
where. There are men with possibilities hardly less than 
were Samson's, — with powers unlike his, yet equal to 
them, — whose lives are not less a miserable failure than 
his. Gifted, they use their gifts to no purpose praise- 
worthy ; strong in their own consciousness, their strength 
serves them for a time, but proves the veriest weakness in 
some unexpected moment, and they go down before the 
enemy of all good, and are wrecked forever. 

These Samsons whose powers all go for naught, — what 
a melancholy spectacle they present ! And what is the 
lesson ? That we should not put ourselves in the way of 
temptation, fondly believing we can withstand it and 
come off unscathed. That we can not recline in the lap 
of any Delilah of sin, however gentle its nature, with a 
certainty we shall not be shorn of what is our pride and 
glory. That gifts misapplied and perverted will bring us 
only bitterest reward ; and that without an earnest aim 
our life will darken into woe most fearful. Shall we 
make the lesson ours, and profit by it? 



MY WILDERNESS. 

Weary and worn on the mountain-side dreary, 

Fainting, an hungered, with sadness opprest, — 
Worn with long watches, with laboring weary, 

Tempted and troubled, but finding no rest ; 
Saviour of Men ! by the pain of Thy bearing 

Oft am I strengthened, in weakness, to-day ; 
Often the thought of Thy wilderness faring 

Helps me along on my wilderness way 

Bleeding and torn in the battle of being ; 

Hearing the tempter who speaks to allure ; 
Saviour of Men ! in Thy merciful seeing, 

Grant that I fail not, but bravely endure ! 
Tempted and troubled, I know that Thou nearest 

All that my soul in temptation would say ; — 
This the one thought that my loneliness cheerest— 

Saviour of Men ! Thou didst faint by the way ! 

Unto me Satan comes, pleasantly smiling, 

Rich in his proffers of bounty in store ; 
Saviour of Men ! Thou hast known his beguiling, 

Proffers of wealth he hast made thee before. 
There on the mountain-side, knowing Thy trial 

Waited before Thee — the cross, and its pain, 
Thou didst deny him, and in that denial, 

Saviour of Men ! was humanity's gain ! 

Fainting, an hungered, the tempter beside me, 
Onward I go o'er the mountains of life ; 



MAN'S NEED. 

Saviour of Men ! let no evil detide me 
Let me not fail in the midst of the strife ! 

Thou who wast weary and worn with Thy faring, 
Tempted and tried on the wilderness way — 

Saviour of Men ! — by the pain of Thy bearing 
Strengthen me now in the strife of to-day ! 



H5 



MAN'S NEED. 

The desire for sympathy exists in every human heart 
We all feel that we need some one to whom we can go 
in the fullest confidence, who will sympathize with us — 
who will bear a part of our burdens by becoming ac- 
quainted with them. There may be stoics — men who 
appear wholly indifferent to the concern of their fellows 
— who go about apparently giving no sympathy and ask- 
ing none — but somewhere and at sometime in their lives 
they prove insufficient to themselves, and long for sweet 
and tender sympathies with the deepest longings humani- 
ty knows. 

With the distrust which man naturally feels for his 
kind, the desire for and the real need of sympathy is sel- 
dom quite satisfied through any human agency. Friend- 
ly regard, and the affection of kindred, do much toward 
satisfying, it is true, but they do not always do enough. 
In a sense which many who read this will understand, 
they fall far short. Every heart has, now and then, cer- 



146 MAN'S NEED. 

tain vague, half-denied hopings and aspirations which 
it shrinks from imparting to even the nearest and dearest. 
Many have weary, sickening burdens that they never allow 
human eye to look upon. Many more have convictions 
of duty, questionings as to labor, doubtings as to an 
hundred things in life, that cannot be properly compre- 
hended by any sympathy not divine and Omniscient. 

Man's need, then, is of that sympathy which only can 
be found in a heart having divinity within it, and yet 
possessing perfect knowledge of humanity's longings and 
besetments. The Christian finds this need fully met in 
the great heart of his Redeemer. If he be sorrowing, 
and in deep grief, he can speak of it to the "Man of 
•sorrows and acquainted with grief," and be comforted. 
If he be tempted, Christ's sympathy is complete, for He 
was likewise teirqt.d. In every contingency which 
weak human nature may chance upon, the sympathy open 
to the Christian is perfect, and contains a blessing. 

Human sympathy, even when it is most sincere, most 
freely given and most satisfying, satisfies in but a meager 
way. It lacks something, we often feel, sweet as it may 
be — much as it is craved. But the divine sympathy is 
wonderfully full of consolation and cheer ; it possesses a 
power over the heart that may not be measured. — that can 
be felt, but can not be described. He leads a poor life who 
keeps aloof, in the main, from all sympathetic associa- 
tions with his fellows ; he leads a life poorer, far poorer 
still, who shuns the outreaching of that Divine Heart, 
whose sympathies, if received and welcomed, would hap- 

10 



BY THE WAY. 1 47 

pify and ennoble the hearts of all mankind. Such an one 
misses the great joy that might otherwise gladden his life, 
— goes searching through the years for what he can never 
find, — and comes, finally, to believe that existence is a. 
fearfully dull, unhappy thing. His need to-day, will be 
his need to-morrow, because what would fill it is shut 
out, and what is useless only is sought after. The hunger 
for sympathy never can be satiated upon husks. 



BY THE WAY. 

A weeping widow walked beside the bier 

Whereon her son lay dead ; 
And one who sought the city's gate drew near, 

And words of comfort said. 

How swift His sympathetic soul to see 

Her deep and bitter grief ! 
How swift and sure as ever then was He 

To give His glad relief ! 

Perchance she stood in sorrowful amaze 
When first His voice she heard ; 

Perchance sad wonder went before her praise, 
To hear His wondrous word. 

Perchance they grew impatient at His speech, 

The burden dear who bore ; 
Perchance they marveled vainly, each with each, 

Who would the dead restore. 



I48 BY THE WAY. 

A stranger He ? ah, yes ! but one whose heart 

Went out to every woe ; 
In whose great love all suffering souls have part, 

Where'er they weeping go. 

" I say to thee "— O, marvelous surprise 

That in His saying spoke ! — 
" I say to thee, young man/' — blest word — " Arise ! 

A.nd straight the youth awoke. 

Awoke and rose from out the saddest sleep 

That mortals ever take, 
O'er which we bend our bleeding hearts and weep, 

And wonder where they wake ! 

Awoke and walked. And He who met him there 

Went on His lonely way, 
But ever meets with the same wondrous care 

All weeping souls to-day. 

Did e'er so sad a journey see an end 

So marvelously glad ? 
To-day the same all-wise and tender Friend 

Awaits all souls as sad. 

Who goes to bury something all his own — 

Some hope his only stay — 
May marvel much to hear that tender tone 

Beside the weary way. 

He sought and found the city's gate who said 

J ' I say to thee Arise ! " 
But for all hearts who weep beside their dead 

He has His glad surprise ! 



THE GATE BEAUTIFUL. 

Ruth has been reading of that poor unfortunate who 
used to wait at the gate that w r as called Beautiful, to receive 
alms from those who went up to the temple to worship, — 
the one whom the disciples blest not with silver or gold, 
but with the gift of bodily strength and vigor, through 
the name of Christ. 

Do noc w T e all wait at some Gate Beautiful through the 
years, expectant of good gifts to be doled out to us ? 
Alms of a kind foitune we would receive,— the silver and 
gold of some hoped-for blessing. Perhaps it is given, 
but w^e never have enough. Every day we are carried by 
ambition, by hope, by greed, mayhap, to the place of 
passing, and there we tarry, never so fully blest that we 
would not go again. 

Perchance we never think, as very likely the unfortu- 
nate alms-taker never thought, that there is a better bles- 
sing possible to us than the one we w T ait for. Perhaps 
w T e never recognize that good can come to us apart from 
this one line in which we are accustomed to its coming. 
But the better blessing is possible ; the greater good may 
gladden us ; and from our idle waiting we may rise to a 
life of active work — to a being and doing so much nob- 
ler and worthier than the old that we should seem new 
men indeed. 



I50 THE SUMMER IS ENDED. 

All disciples may find a profitable lesson at the Gate 
Beautiful. Here was a man in need. They might have 
said, as they did say, "Silver and gold we have none/' 
and considering this a sufficient excuse they might have 
passed on unhelping. Yet they did not. Though they 
could not do for the man according to his desire, they 
could do for him after all. They improved their oppor- 
tunity. Would that all disciples of the Master were as 
willing as they ! All have not their power to heal ; but 
true discipleship carries some power with it, which may 
be exerted to human good. The power to uplift, and 
help on, in one way or another, belongs to each of us, 
even if there be no pence in the purse. We may be 
something better than alms-givers, if we will make use of 
opportunities .offered. Shall we not ? 



THE SUMMER IS ENDED. 

"The harvest is passed, the summer is ended." Thus 
read Ruth a few minutes since, before the twilight fully 
deepened. 

And sitting here now, the words come up again for 
our meditation. The summer is ended — the summer of 
rest, of relaxation, of recuperation, for many; the sum- 
mer of idleness, of fashionable folly, of wickedness and 
dissipation for many more. Back from the cool nooks, 



THE SUMMER IS ENDED. 1 5 [ 

the quiet resting places, come those who went for their 
bodily good ; back from haunts of fashion and foolish- 
ness, of sin and shame, hie those who sought there only 
excitement and feverish waste of time. 

The summer is ended. To all, what has it taught ? 
Are any rested in spirit? — calmed by the peace of Nature 
and made glad by holy communion through Nature 
with Nature's God? Are any strengthened in their re- 
solves to be more earnest in the w T ork of the future — to 
help on God's purposes with a firm heart and an unfalter- 
ing hand? Are any (would they all were!) sick of all 
the glitter of gold, the shams of folly, the sins of fash- 
ionable unrest, and ready to cry out in the anguish of 
remorse because the summer is ended and their souls not 
saved ? 

Summer's passing should bring much of sober reflect- 
ion, of serious resolves, of quickened spirituality. If 
there be one time more than anothei when man gets 
nearer his Maker, it surely is the summer time, when 
God speaks daily in the tender rustle of leaf and branch, 
in pleasant breezes, and by the rippling water-brooks. 
And whoever hears the " still, small voice" through day 
after day of happy idleness should return to labor profi- 
ted. Whoever hears not the voice so still, — whoever 
listens most for speech of fashion only, — should return to 
autumn walks, and sigh for opportunities lost, for good 
ungained, and being all unblest 



BLESSED ARE THE MEEK. 

They go forevermore unblest 
Who cherish closely in their breast 
The pride of earth ; all goodly things 
Fly past their reach on silent wings, 
And worthless is the prize they seek ; 
But ever " Blessed are the 'meek !" 

The forms that walk erect and proud, 
And trumpet their own praises loud, 
Shall fall at last ; but those bowed down 
Shall win at length the victor's crown, 
However humble they, and weak, 
For ever " Blessed are the meek ! " 

God's promises are always just. 
All dust of earth is only dust, 
And vanishes and leaves no sign. 
The lowliest is most divine, 
And in its lowly being feels 
A grace humility conceals. 

The sweetest fragrance born of bloom 
By modest mound or lowly tomb 
Breathes faintly out upon the air ; 
The surest answer granted prayer 
Is granted unto those who seek 
Believing " Blessed are the meek." 

O God of love ! look down, I pray, 
Upon my haughty heart to-day ! 



CHRIST IN THE HOME. 1 53 

Let meekness with me e'er abide 
A treasured guest, in place of pride ; 
And let this truth be to me known, 
Thai 4i Blessed are the meek " alone ! 



CHRIST IN THE HOME. 

That story of Jesus in the little home at Bethany ! 
Ruth read it through again, before the twilight. While 
she read, we listened. Now we think it all over, and 
find a delight in thus considering what Jesus was in one 
domestic circle. 

There were only three of them. "And Jesus loved 
Martha and her sister, and Lazarus " — all three of them 
— each of them. Just here comes in the best thought 
about it — it was a personal, individual love which Christ 
gave. It was not that He loved the family, as a family, 
but that He loved each member of that family. 

Was it only a one-sided love ? Ah, no ! Mary and 
Martha, and Lazarus, each loved Him. And in the 
homes of to-day there may be the same reciprocity of 
individual love — may be, and must be, if there is to be 
in the end an individual salvation. Jesus Christ does 
not save families. He does not in any way deal with or 
do for men in the mass. He may come into a home and 
love, and be loved by, one or two, or more members of 
the home circle, without coming into loving, near and 
tender relations to all the members. 



154 CHRIST IN THE HOME. 

When Lazarus died, how the weeping sisters mourn- 
ed. When Christ declared that Lazarus should rise 
again, how blind they were. "We know that our 
brother shall rise again at the last day," the}' said. They 
had faith to believe that in the general resurrection He 
should have a part, but that Christ had power then and 
xhere to breathe new life into one long dead, they did 
not yet comprehend. Unto their slow comprehension 
Christ made a sublime revelation. "I am the resurrec- 
tion and the life/' said He. And to our own slow, halt- 
ing trust the same declaration comes this hour. 

Are any whom we love dead in sin ? In Christ there 
may be immediate resurrection. Are we ourselves as the 
dead? "Whosoever believeth," said Jesus, and the 
"whosoever " means us. As Christ came into the little 
home at Bethany, loving each one there by name and in 
character, so He waits to enter, if He has not already 
entered, every home on the broad earth. For the living, 
His love is full of ministry. For the dead it brings a 
resurrection. For the living He is a Friend and a Help- 
er, making glad with sweet affections, and sympathizing 
in every grief. For the dead He is a Saviour, raising up 
to newness of life and putting aside the dust and ashes of 
the grave. 

There is no more touching picture of Christ than this 
which shows Him in the home, loving, and sympathiz- 
ing, and comforting. There is none which more perfect- 
ly demonstrates His power than does this — none which 
more clearly sets before us an important lesson of faith. 
The belief that Christ can help now, that He can save 



HIS COMING. J 55 

and restore now, was what those two stricken sisters need- 
ed, and it is what many need at this time. A vague, 
general notion that Christ will help in some distant to- 
morrow, possesses almost every one. A live, honest, 
unshaken belief in His strength for present exigencies is 
the great lack. Why should the lack exist? Why 
should not this belief be universal ? 



HIS COMING. 

" The Bridegroom cometh ! " In some night to be, 

Out of the darkness dim 
This cry shall sound ; and some glad souls shall see 

The glory hid with Him ! 

Shall I be one of these ? Or shall I lie 

Asleep in sin's embrace, 
And heedless of the welcome, warning cry, 

Fail to behold His face ? 

" The Bridegroom cometh ! " To each waiting soul 

The cry is made to-day. 
Where waves of deepest, blackest darkness roll, 

He would make light the way. 

Into each life He would some glory shed, 
Some gladder blessing bring, — 

To all who weep above their early dead 
A psalm of peace would sing. 



156 DEMONIZED MANHOOD. 

" The Bridegroom cometh !" Pause awhile and hark, 

With ali-expectant ear ! 
For you the cry, resounding through the dark — 

The Bridegroom He is here ! 



DEMONIZED MANHOOD. 

The text this morning was that story of the demoniac 
of Gadara, from whom Christ cast out the devils ; and 
the preacher drew many excellent lessons from it. 

That man of Gadara has many a counterpart even now. 
To-day there are thousands demonized by sin — held by 
its wretched power — all their better nature in complete 
subjection thereto. Sin maddens them, torments them ; 
they are bruised by it ; their lives are most miserable be- 
cause of its terrible presence. 

How sadly true this is, we all know — some of us by 
painful personal experience. And how sweet the thought 
that our Saviour healed the Gadarene ! The demons 
possessing the man were strong, but Christ was stronger 
even than they. All his life long the Gadarene had suf- 
fered from their indwelling ; now he was clothed, and in 
his right mind. There were no more roamings of the 
hills by day, no more nights among the tombs, no more 
bruisings. Thenceforth he was free ! 

Are we free? Has any demon of sin still a lodgment 
in our hearts? Or do we hold to one or more, even 



DEMONIZED MANHOOD. 



157 



yet ? Has the Saviour come to us as He came to all 
those in Gadara, and are we praying Him, as they pray- 
ed Him, to depart out of our coasts? Would we beseech 
His departure for the same reason that they besought it 
— because, forsooth, in the healing of demonized souls a 
few swine may have suffered, and others — ours, perhaps > 
may suffer? 

Verily there are men in the world, and their name, 
like that of the devils possessing him of Gadara, is le- 
gion, who think more of their swine than they do of 
human beings. No matter what becomes of the souls of 
men, so that their swine are saved. Swine or souls — is 
there not a choice ? Ask the dram-seller, the gambler, — 
any whose pockets are lined with the hearts and hopes, 
and possibilities of their fellows. What is their answer ? 
"Souls? — what are souls to us? The bestial nature is. 
ours ; do not meddle with it. On the swinishness of 
those around us we fatten — hinder us not." 

Among all sad facts there is not a sadder one than 
this, — that men should so weigh in the balance their 
paltry self-interest against the eternal welfare of immor- 
tal souls. And it is a fearfully significant lesson taught 
in the last portion of that story of the Gadarene — a les- 
on so significant that it seems as if no lover of gains 
could put it lightly aside — the men of Gadara never saw 
again the form of Him whose presence might so richly 
have blessed them. 



"AM I MY BROTHER'S KEEPER?''' 

" Am I my brother's keeper?" As of old 

The question comes from lips of murderous Cain. 

Through lustful passion, or through greed of gold, 
Is unsuspecting Abel foully slain, 

And Conscience parries, with a feigned surprise, 

The query where the sin of murder lies. 

" Am I my brother's keeper ? " Yesternight 
A life went out in darkness and despair ; 

Fiends mocked and jeered and jibbered at its flight, 
And curses left no room for breath of prayer ; 

What recks the Cain who stands with visage grim 

And fills the glasses to their damning brim ? 

*' Am I my brother's keeper ? " Day by day 
With luring smiles the weak to death are led ; 

With trustful steps I hey walk the tempting way, — 
Their Wood be on the smiling tempter's head ! 

O Cains ! too many die who weakly trust ; 

But God lives on, and God is true and just ! 

Aye, God Hves on ! His patience lingers long, 
His mercy through the weary years can wait ; 

And Right may suffer at the hands of Wrong, 
But recompense is coming, soon or late ! 

" Am I my brother's keeper ? '*' God of Right, 

Hear, Thou, and answer in Thy righteous might ! 



THE DIVINE HEALING. 

"Wilt thou be made whole?" 

On a week-day evening not long ago the preacher took 
up these words, and now in this Sabbath twilight they 
come back to us, with a xemembrance of the thoughts, 
he deduced from them, and a bit of sober meditation 
suggested by that remembrance. 

"Wilt thou be made whole?" The question implies 
unsoundness. And who of us is sound ? — sound in 
moral nature ? Do we not all need a physician ? Are 
not some of us sick unto death ? Though many will 
confess to no great burden of sin, there are few who do 
not feel a sense of imperfectness — a longing for some 
influence filling in and rounding out, and making beau- 
tiful, their lives. 

What a sad array of sick souls ! They look out wear- 
iedly from eyes wont to gaze upon glitter and show — 
they sigh in ever increasing unrest amid the follies of 
wealth and pride of social position. Sick unto death, 
some of them; and there is only One Healer. "Wilt 
thou be made whole?" He questions. There is per- 
sonality in the questioning. It is "Wilt thouV It 
comes home to each one of us with as much significance 
as it came home to the heart of the well-nigh hopeless 
invalid by Bethesda's pool. 

Ah, we are all by the pool of blessing, watchful for 



l60 THE DIVINE HEALING, 

the troubling of the waters, — desiring to step in and find 
our sickness fled. And what keeps us back ? Some of 
us have been here as long as was the invalid of old beside 
Bethesda, and like him, we are still unhealed. And now 
Christ comes to our very side, and the opportunity to be 
made whole is ours beyond any human power to take it 
away. Any ? Not so. Our own will may lose us all 
" Wilt thou ?" The healing is a thing of the present. 
All the invalid had to do was to say "I will," and the 
Divine healing found its consummation. " Wilt thou be 
made whole ? %i 

Healer, hear my cry ! 

I would be whole, to-day ! 
Pass me not waiting by, — 
Nor let me longer lie 

Where all the sin-sick lay ! 

1 would be whole this hour ; 
O Saviour, show Thy power ! 



SANCTIFYING TOIL. 

Back from his summer's vacation, our preacher had 
not altogether gotten away from its atmosphere and sug- 
gestiveness. * He had been fishing, and so he chose for 
his morning text those wonderful words of the Master to 
some fisher-folk of Galilee — " Henceforth ye shall be 
fishers of men." It was a rare scene, of course, that 
sunrise hour on the Lake of Gennesaret, when the men 



SANCTIFYING TOIL. l6l 

of nets had toiled all night in vain, and were worn out 
with fruitless endeavor. A rare scene, and the carpen- 
ter's Son stood forth the rarest figure in it, as with sym- 
pathy quick and power certain he entered into the work 
those fishers performed. His part in it was not large 
but what results it brought 1 He told them where to 
cast their net, and gave a miraculous draught as reward 
for their obedience. 

" It is a pleasant thought" says Ruth now, as we talk 
it over in the twilight ; "a pleasant thought, that Christ 
sought out the very lowliest when about to commission 
His disciples. Taking men from the humblest calling, 
entering into the real spirit of that calling before such a 
choice, He thus sanctified all effort. No wonder Simon 
Peter recognized Him there at once, as super-human, 
and fell down before His divine presence." 

" And yet that was a strange prayer of Peter's/' some 
one remarks, " ' Depart from me, for I am a sinful 
man. ' " 

' 'Yes," is the answer : " because Peter was sinful, the 
more need for Christ to tarry with him and bless him. 
But Simon was always doing wise things in an unwise 
way. The Master had come here into Peter's plain every- 
day life, and had wrought a miracle. Touching, so, the 
man's actual, ordinary being, Christ's own being was 
now clearly revealed. There had been another miracle 
only a day or two before ; the woman sick of a fever had 
been restored ; but the surprise on account of Christ's 
power does not appear to have been so great as now. 
Perhaps it is always so. Perhaps we never so thoroughly 

ii 



1 6 2 SA NOTIFYING TOIL . 

understand the Master's nature as when He comes into 
our daily toil and shines out upon it with marvelous 
strength. 

■'And when do we need the presence of Christ more 
than, or so much as, in the daily being and doing of our 
lives ? We toil all the night long often, and our work 
avails us nothing. We grow discouraged. The heart 
and the flesh fail us. What shall we do that we have not 
done ? Then if happily Christ speak to us, as the day 
breaks — and it is mostly day-break when He does speak 
— and if we respond in ready faith which says ' Neverthe- 
less at Thy word we will, ' we shall surely find that which 
wq seek. For if the Saviour sanctified all labor, as I 
believe He did, He, in a sense at least, gave surety that 
labor shall bring its blessing. If not to-night, then to- 
morrow ; if not on the morrow, then some near day in 
the By-and-By. I wonder what people did without a to- 
morrow that was certain before Christ came into the 
world. 

" Blessed be they that work, for they shall not wait 
without promise ! I fancy we are all disciples, somehow, 
and that often the Master stands by our side, when we are 
faint and heart-weary and utters His glad ' Henceforth/ 
But before that comes a ' Fear not/ and wisely too, since 
we grow troubled for the end so often and so soon, and 
are ready to give up. Is it night now where any tired 
soul stands ? The morning is near at hand, and when it 
dawns our pitying Lord shall speak the one dear word of 
comfort. " 



THE EVER ABSENT. 

I CAN not think her dead : I see her yet, 

Her smile a sudden glory shining through, 

As if her life could never quite forget 

A gladder being that it sometime knew, 

And all the memory warmed within her face 

With catching glimpses of some olden grace. 

Her smile — it had a radiance all its own, 

Though possibly the angels bask in such ; 

And haply her sweet face had somewhere known 
The added sweetness of an angel's touch, 

And this was what it ne'er forgot, the while, 

But thought upon serenely in her smile. 

For somewhere angels do their impress lend, 
Upon the faces that we dearest prize, — 

Somewhere, sometime ; and then when comes the end, 
And those we love, despite our moaning cries, 

Go outward from us where we may not see, 

And leave behind them but a memory, 

Methinks the angels call them fondly thence, 
To see if vestige of their touch remains,— 

To see if, mid the waiting and suspense, 

The carping care, the perils and the pains. 

A trace of signet holy lingers there ; 

And afterwards their presence can not spare ! 



164 GOD'S LEADING. 

And so I think she went. She heard the call, 

And said " I come," with that rare smile of hers, 

Leaving the earth, — its many beauties all, 

Her. pets that were her willing worshipers, 

Her friends that clasped her close and prayed her stay,- 

And sweetly walked along the unknown way ; 

Till, seeing through the darkened way she went 
The glory of her smile so radiant shine, 

The angels met her, lovingly intent, 

And led her up the wearying incline, 

And finding nothing of their impress fled, 

Forever choose that we should think her dead ! 



GOD'S LEADING. 

"He leadeth me in green pastures, and beside the still 
waters ! " 

Blessed picture of that rest we yearn after and which 
seems commonly so far away ! Does God lead ? If the 
green pasture-land is not yet opened to our tired eyes — if 
the way is yet hard and stony to our wearied feet — shall 
we come out into all the comfort and restfulness of lovely 
fields and pleasant paths by-and-by ? So we question ; 
and God will forgive the question, and answer it in His 
own good time, if, though heart-sick and discouraged, 
we press on and fail not. 



GOD'S LEADING. 165 

But let us not forget, meanwhile, that God's leading 
implies a willingness to be led. We can go our own 
way. He will not compel us. We can seek for the 
green fields of our hope, asking no help, relying upon 
no guidance. When God through His son said " Come 
unto me and I will give you rest," it was not as a com- 
mand, but as an invitation, to be- accepted or refused. 
We may refuse, — alasj how many do ! We may walk on 
and complain that the still waters of peace flow far be- 
yond human finding. Yet still the placid waters do flow, 
and some good souls walk beside them and complain not 
all the day long. 

God's leading ! It is twilight ; and yet the way never 
darkens. It is thick night ; and yet we stumble uot. 

Tender Shepherd ! all the way, 

With Thy leading, is as day ; 

Twilight dim, or deepest night. 

Darkens not Thy watchful sight ; _ 

Led by Thee, my willing feet 

Soon may find Thy pastures sweet ; 

Lead me, then, by waters still, 

In Thine own Eternal will ! 



Men have died poor, who all their life long revelled in 
wealth ; men have gone out of the world rich beyond 
measure, who had small earthly possessions, and all be- 
cause they had given themselves away to Christ, and 
been bountifully given to of God's love in return. 



TRUSTING. 

"He that believeth shall not make haste," was the 
morning's text, and the preacher drew from it excellent 
lessons for us all. 

God's ways seem very slow, sometimes. What we 
would see done waits long for the doing, and we grow im- 
patient. But if we believe in God we should possess 
our soul in patience. In His own good time everything 
will come right. 

Men forget, often, that the Creator still controls the 
world. In the midst of the anti-slavery agitation, when 
those who believed the slave bitterly wronged saw only 
darkness ahead, certain ones held a meeting, and Fred- 
erick Douglass made a speech. It was terribly earnest 
in behalf of his people. As he was proceeding with an 
appeal to all friends of freedom to rise at once in their 
might, and strike off every shackle, a tall, gaunt negress 
— Sojourner Truth by name — arose in the assemblage, 
and fixing her eyes searchingly upon the speaker said — 

' ' Frederick, is God dead ? " 

She was a living exemplication of the truth—" He 
that believeth shall not make haste." And to all such 
God is not dead. He is a veritable Presence, and in 
His hands all human affairs can be trusted. 

There are little things often, that trouble us, and that 



ALONG THE WAY. 1 67 

render us impatient of the end. Yet God is as much 
alive to these as to those of greater magnitude. Let us 
trust Him, then, in these. The fret and the worry of 
soul concerning them, in which so many indulge, is idle. 
Worse than that, it is sinful, and works harm. 



ALONG THE WA Y. 

Whom have I, Lord, within Thy heaven but Thee ? 

And there is none beside, 

On all the earth so wide, 
That can to me both Friend and Helper be. 

Forsake me not, I pray, 

Throughout the lonely way, 
But kindly walk my dubious path with me ! 

Of old Thou wast the present Helper, Friend, 

Of holy men who trod 

Appointed ways of God ; 
To me Thy gracious presence henceforth lend, 

Though I have sinned so sore ; 

Nor leave me evermore, 
But cheer and comfort grant me till the end! 

Thy son, our own dear Elder Brother,came, 

And sorrowed, suffered, bled, 

For us His life-blood shed, 
And died at last a death of deepest shame. 

Now for His sake I cry ; 

Nor canst Thou e'er deny 
The prayer put up to Thee in His dear name ! 



1 68 THE POVER'IY OF RICHES. 

Then hear me, Lord, I pray, and let me know 
That Thou, indeed, hast heard 
My every prayerful word, 

By going with me wheresoe'er I go ! 

No way with Thee is dark ; 
And with Thee I shall hark 

For speech of Thine, so tender, sweet and low, 

Amid the noises jarring on my ear, 
So full of fret and pain, 
So vexing and so vain, 

Thy still, small voice I fain would ever hear ! 
Speak to me, day by day, 
Along the troublous way, 

So shall 1 know that Thou art always near ! 



THE POVERTY OF RICHES. 

i ' For riches take wings and fly away. " 

Was Ruth reading, or syllabling her own thought, 
when she uttered these words? We could not tell. 
Finally, after a little pause, she said : 

"Yesterday I read an account of the late panic in 
Wall street, and it seemed very sad. Some men were 
rich in the morning, and at night had not a dollar. 
What a sudden change for such ! It must be hard to 
feel so poor after enjoying wealth." 

Then we were silent a while, and full of thought. At 



THE POVERTY OF RICHES. 1 69 

last one of us — was it the home-heart, from her easy- 
chair ? — broke the silence again. 

' ' Yet is there poverty even in riches. " 

Ah, yes ! Poorest of all God's poor are many who 
own houses and land, and know no earthly want. God's 
poor ? Nay ; for the poor of God have an abundance 
that fails not. Of their wealth the rich know nothing. 
Their treasure is safe. Banks may break, but they are 
secure. Public confidence may falter, they have no fear. 
For God's poor was it spoken — " Blessed are the poor, 
in spirit." 

Souls may suffer while bodies roll in luxury. The 
poverty of riches is beyond all common cure. Millions 
for the signifying, — but no real joy. Carriages and dia- 
monds, — but no peace. Mortgages and coupons, — but 
no enduring comfort. Poverty ! It is hard to go an- 
hungered ; it is hard to feel pinched and hemmed in ; it 
is hard to want beautiful things, — to long for much and 
have little ; it is hard to go on and on amid deprivation 
and care, and know no satisfying of the merely human 
needs. Ah, yes ! But is it not harder to hunger for 
what jio money can buy ?- — to go forever athirst ? — to 
long for something which shall fill the heart full, and 
make the whole being glad ? Verily it is. They are not 
always rich who seem blessed of Plenty. They are not 
always poor who want. 



OUR THANKSGIVING. 

Through the twilight silence we have spoken no word. 
What each has been thinking of, who shall say ? It is 
Ruth who, as usual, is first to speak. 

" It is hard to be thankful amid want, and distress, 
and great discouragements. I wonder how many will 
feel on next Thanksgiving Day that it is simply impos- 
sible ? " 

Ruth is always wondering about the hard things of 
life. Well, so are many others. The hard things are 
plenty, and there is always enough to wonder over. 

"It is easy, now, for us, to offer thanks. We feel 
very grateful to God for His goodness unto us. But I 
have seen people who thought God not very good to 
them, and I could'nt help feeling that I might think just 
so, too, if I were in their place." 

We ponder awile upon Ruth's words. Are there, then, 
some who seem neglected of God ? Is it indeed true 
that to any soul God is not good? Beyond question 
there are many not good to themselves. They sin, and 
find joy in sinning ; they forget the Maker's claims and 
remember only self; they in no proper degree recognize 
God and live for Him. That God withdraws His bles- 
sings from such is but natural. That they often abide in 
*. want, and lack much, is not strange. That they distrust 



O VR THA NKSGIVING. I 7 1 

supreme goodness, and are devoid of all gratitude, is but 
the logic of their course and character. 

Gratitude is the child of faith and love. Our thank- 
offerings measure the love we enjoy. Do we love any 
one much ? Then we are grateful for small favors extend- 
ed by them. There is great danger, it is irue, that we 
come to take every gift as but our due, and so receive 
whatever is tendered with indifference and ingratitude. 
It is just here that we sin most. God is our father, we ad- 
mit, and He is bound to mete out according to each 
necessity. But we err. His fatherhood does not bind 
Him for our needs. Life itself was His free gift. Every ad- 
ded pleasure, or benefit, or help, is likewise a free gift, 
and in no degree whatever ours by right. For the small- 
est favor granted we stand debtor. 

And there are none who go on through the years un- 
helped. The poorest pauper of all has been given of 
God. In some manner he does not heed, God has cared 
for him. In some way he does not suspect, God is doing 
for him. The very fact that he is a pauper does not es- 
tablish anything against God . The gift of life was his ; 
he might have made of it ail that another did make of a 
gift similar. Why he failed is not for any to say. God 
knows. God permitted the failure, though He did not 
cause it. God is not Fate, and for this let us ever be 
thankful. 

For all that we may be, let us thank Him to whom we 
are indebted for the possibility. We may never attain to 
it. We may go through the years poor in possessions, 
lean in soul, and never satisfied ; yet for the possibilities 



I72 THA NKSGIV1NG. 

we are debtor. It is better to praise God for the Might 
Have Been, than sigh over it. It is better to see in what 
is, a hope, than always to complain because it is not a 
fulfillment. God gives the hope, and we make our own 
fulfillment. 

Ruth doubts this, and says thers are persons, of the 
very best intentions, whose endeavors have been well put 
forth, who nevertheless have failed, and see no occasion 
to thank God for failure. 

True, but even these may feel glad that it is no worse. 
Very few get to the lowest deep of want and failure. 
Then again, one should be thankful for others' joy and 
success. Is there not a selfishness of gratitude? To give 
thanks only for what is received in person is most meager 
thanksgiving indeed. In the great world, one is a little 
atom of a great mass. If the thousands are blest, let us 
rejoice, though we sit in poverty of being forevermore. 



THANKSGIVING. 

Some days of sweet content are mine ; 

Some days of waiting sore 
For joys I can but half divine, 

So far they go before ; 
Some days of doubt, some days of cheer, 

Some days so sweet and strong 
They bear me on an atmosphere 

Of trusting faith along, 



THA NKSGIVING. I 7 3 

Till on tue mountain-lops I stand 
And view the welcome Promised Land ! 

And for these days my thanks are due — 

Accept them, gracious Lord ! 
For all these days, of every hue, 

That with my life accord. 
Each day within it holds a good 

Of some diviner kind 
Than any, dimly understood, 

My consciousness can find, 
And for the good I can not see 
My thanks go out, O Lord, to Thee ! 

I know that all about my life 

Some unseen blessings wait, — 
That through the deafening din of strife 

Some sweet songs palpitate ; 
That God is good, howe'er it seems, 

And doing richly worth ; 
That in the brightest sunlight beams 

His angels visit earth, 
And in the shadows walk they still, 
Fulfilling His own holy will ! 

For all I am my thanks I give ; 

For all that I might be ! 
The life is mine I do not live — 

My gift, O God, from Thee ! 
I thank Thee for its brighter days 
That some time I may know, 
And ask Thy guidance through the ways 

That to it haply go ; 
And so with thanks for blessings mine 
I wait the leading all divine ! 



DOUBTING CHRIST. 
Blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in 



me." 



This was the preacher's text to-day. Christ spoke the 
words in partial answer to that doubt of John the Bap- 
tist which sent his disciples to the Saviour to ask of Him 
concerning His identity. 

Ever since John's time there have been doubters, even 
among those who believe most in Christ. It is natural 
that men who have accepted Him should sometimes feel 
their faith shaken. Because Christ's ways are not our 
ways. This was what troubled John. Jesus came not 
as John had expected Him to come. The manner of His 
administration was hardly that of a kingly Messiah. In 
everything, this One whose coming John had preached 
was in marked contrast to the ideal previously conceived. 

And so it is with us. We conceive of a Saviour who 
shall appear thus and thus — who shall deal with us after 
our own peculiar notions of justice and expediency — who 
shall help us through certain agencies with which we are 
familiar. We accept the Saviour, and behold we are 
grievously disappointed, for He is far different from our 
conception of Him. His dealings with us are not at all 
as we desired, and do not accord with our views of jus- 
tice and expediency — the ministering agents He employs 
suit us not. So we are offended in Him. Misgivings 



DOUBTIXG CHRIST. 



175 



enter into our minds, and we cry out distrustfully, "Is 
this the Christ ? " 

There is hardly a sweeter beatitude in the Sermon on 
the Mount than this text of the preacher's. It means 
much for us all. Blessed is he who murmurs not though 
he be smitten ; blessed are they who accept all divine 
dealings as wisest and best ; blessed are such as be not 
impatient under long withholding ; blessed are all whose 
will is humbled, whose pride has frequent fallings, whose 
life is unsatisfying, yet who give not over to doubt and 
despair : it is as though Christ had said all this in detail, 
and very much more. 

There was ever a mine of meaning in the speech of 
Jesus. Men have thought upon single sentences of His 
until they became part and parcel of their beings, grow- 
ing more and more fruitful as these broadened towards 
completed growth. And this blessing — has it not special 
significance for us all ? Are we never offended in Christ? 
Do we never question when sudden affliction smites, or 
coveted wishes fail of fulfillment, "Is this He ? " 




THANK-OFFERINGS. ' 

How meager ours are, often ! We take so much that 
comes to us of good and comfort as a matter of course ! 
Perhaps we do not really feel, but we seem to, that God 
only does His duty by us at the best — that He is bound 
to provide for us all that is provided ; and some will even 
complain because His provision is not more full and 
satisfactory. 

Sitting here now, in the firelight, thinking of the 
Thanksgiving so soon to come — a day which will be to 
so many fuller of feasting than of thanks — we call to 
mind the words of a preacher to whom we often listened 
in the years gone by, who had a way of putting things 
very striking. It was in a prayer and conference meet- 
ing, of an evening like this, when thankfulness seemed 
to be most the subject of thought, and one gentleman 
had remarked upon his own lack of gratitude to God for 
mercies enjoyed. The time for closing the meeting had 
come, as he sat down, and eccentric Dr. M — closed it 
in a way we shall never forget. 

" That is always the fact/' said he, as he leaned back 
meditatively in his chair, "ingratitude is our greatest 
sin." Then, his face lightening up as it was wont when 
a new conceit flashed upon him, he continued — "We 
are not half thankful enough for the blessings we receive, 



IN THANKFULNESS. 1 77 

and so we don't receive half as much as we might, often. 
You take a little pitcher to the well, and you get your 
little pitcher full. You take a great pail to the well, and 
you get your great pail full. But you mus'n't expect to 
carry a little pitcher of gratitude to God, and take away 
a great pail full of blessing ! " And, rising suddenly, he 
said, in his abrupt way " Take that and go home ! " and 
this was our benediction. 

The little pitcher of gratitude — how many carry it L 
It is borne in our prayers daily, perhaps — prayers that 
only dimly recognize God's goodness, and have little of 
real heart-thankfulness within them. And shall we carry 
only the little pitcher in days to come, especially in that 
day which is set apart for one great thank-offering of ihe 
people ? He who gives us all things deserves better of 
us all. What comes to us comes not as a mattar of 
course. It is a free gift. Let us fill our largest vessels 
full of gratitude, and mayhap we may carry them away 
from God's altar overflowing with blessing. 



IN THANKFULNESS. 

I fold my hands in idleness, to-day ; 

My heart is yielding its thank-offering. 
44 Of little worth am I, O Lord ! " I say ; 

44 And little can I to Thine altar bring, 



Ij8 IN THANKFULNESS. 

But that I fain would give to Thee always ; " 
And in my heart I chant a psalm of praise. 

I backward look upon my life, and see, 

Above it, through the years, a Presence bent, 

And know what came, of good or ill to me, 
Was by that Presence in all kindness sent ; 

And if some joys I want, in thankfulness 

My heart goes out for those I do possess. 

The skies above me wear a sunny smile ; 

The clouds may come — it will not wholly fade ; 
And sunshine creeps into my life, the while, 

With warmth such as but it and love e'er made. 
My finer being feels a thrill divine 
As on my way the pleasant sunbeams shine. 

There may have been some cherished blessings lost- 
I may have felt some momentary pain ; 

My will, by God's, may often have been crossed ; 
But losing much has only been my gain ; — 

And thankful for the lost, as for the won, 

I fold my hands and say 4< Thy will be done ! " 

To-day is mine. To-day is very broad ; 

It has the fullne&s of the Infinite. 
It reaches from my narrow life to God, 

And holds within it a supreme delight. 
It has the work, and partly the reward — 
The rest will come to-morrow, praise the Lord ! 



OUR HEART-OFFERING. 

"Give thanks unto the Lord for He is good." 
Thus read Ruth, on Thanksgiving evening. Some- 
thing in her voice touched the words with a meaning 
new and sweet. 

"For He is good" she repeated. " How many who 
have to-day listened to those words, really emphasized 

them in their hearts ?" 

We all fell to thinking. In the hush that followed, 
our hearts sent up anew an offering of thanks. God's 
goodness was growing in our sight. 

"For His mercy endureth forever," Ruth chanted 
softly. 

His mercy ! From the heart of the great world at 
large should go up to God an offering of thanks for His 
mercies. If God were good alone, and not merciful, sad 
would it be for many. Because God is good and merci- 
ful both, let us rejoice. 

"I read, once," said Ruth, after a little, "of a min- 
ister whose child died. At the grave, when clods had 
fallen heavily upon the coffin where beauty and love lay 
buried, the father spoke. 'My friends/ said he, 'it has 
been my lot to stand by the graves of many whom you 
loved and mourned. In your sorrow I have told you of 
God's goodness and tender mercy, and you may have 
thought me wrong. In your grief you may have thought 



l8o A CHRISTIAN HABIT. 

me mistaken. But now, standing here by the grave of 
my own loved one, I can say to you that all I have ever 
spoken about God's goodness and mercy is true. God is 
good, and loving, and kind/ I wonder if all mourning 
hearts have felt like this to-day ?" Ruth queried. 

And we thought of the dear friends who miss so much 
from their life — of one loving woman who is companion- 
less on a journey which two began together — and with 
our thank-offering went up a prayer for suffering souls. 
In the twilight's silence, from the corner where the 
mother-heart sits, a tremulous voice breathed out a 
word of comfort so tenderly that we could have wished 
every mourner to hear : 

(( Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord 
pitieih them that fear Him." 



A CHRISTIAN HABIT 

The very habit of godly life helps to keep one from 
temptation and sin. There are times, perhaps, when 
spirituality is at a low ebb in the heart, and little of Gqd's 
sweet love seems to have place therein. Then this habit 
of correct living — a habit acquired through years of 
watchful prayer and persistent purpose — holds the man to 
circumspectness, and keeps him from many things that 
might soil his soul. 

As a saving feature the habit may be little worth, but 



A CHRISTIAN HA BIT, 7 I 8 I 

as a strong cord, holding evil tendencies in check, its 
value is very great. Satan rarely tempts with his wicked- 
est pleasures, those who go straight on in their daily life, 
upheld by a habit strong and strengthening. He dallies 
with such as are uncertain of themselves, being the crea- 
tures of their own impulsive promptings, and swayed 
hither and thither by the power of their own passions. 
Passion habitually held in check, is never harmful ; but 
let it now and then rise to the mastery and all safety is 
gone by. 

For safety lies only in a correct habit, not in an inten- 
tion to be correct in the main, but to grant self certain 
indulgences as inclination may prompt. Just here is 
where sad mistakes are made. Young and old alike 
make them. Men are continually saying to themselves 
— "This indulgence will not work me harm. My life 
shall be mainly correct ; my self-discipline shall be 
rigorously maintained, with some slight exceptions ; I 
will abide by what my conscience dictates as a rule ; but 
every rule has its exceptions. " And yet there are rules 
of being and doing which ought to have' no excep- 
tions — which can not admit of exceptions without abso- 
lute danger. 

It is the exceptional lapses from Christian circumspect- 
ness that impair the Christian character, and weaken the 
Christian faith. If not too often occurring, their in : 
fluence may not be so readily discovered, but it is not the 
less an influence, and it is not the less an influence for 
the bad. In essential quality it is precisely the same 
as though it were more plainly marked but its degree is 



l82 THE STAR DIVINE. 

not so great. Occasional sinnings may not utterly warp 
the nature over, but they leave their impress, and it may 
never be quite eradicated. If the habit of life wholly 
forbid these, how much better in the end. — how much 
better even now ! We do not argue for perfectionism, 
for we believe men will always fall far short sf sinless 
living ; but we argue for a complete shutting out of the 
grosser sins that lure so many to final ruin through occa- 
sional yieldings. Nothing short of divne grace, and a 
rule of life which will admit no exceptings, can save men 
from these. 



THE STAR DIVINE. 

I sit beside my window here, 
And through the winter atmosphere 
I see the hills of evening rise 
Against the fading sunset skies. 

As one by one the stars outshine, 

I think how in this heart of mine 

When darkness comes, through fear and doubt, 

The star of love shines clearly out. 

It brighter still and brighter glows, 
As deeper night my being knows, 
'And looking steadfast on its ray 
I half forget the vanished day. 



THE STAR DIVINE. ^ 1 83 



Star of Love divine, so blest, 
Shine on forever in my breast, 
That never night may come to me 
So dark I can no comfort see ! 

The clouds are often o'er my way 
So dense I walk in twilight gray, 
But in thy light, O star divine, 

1 see my Master's face outshine ! 

And seeing this I walk along, 
Upon my lips a grateful song ; 
Within my heart a grateful prayer 
That God will make all shadows fair. 

Then Faith contends He ever will, 
And Faith recites with tender thrill 
That for a moment dims my sight — 
"At evening-time let there be light ! " 



You have heard of the man who, when he ate a cherry, 
always put his spectacles on, that it might seem the larger 
to him ? It were better, seemingly, in some such way to 
magnify our hope, than continually to depreciate it. It 
is possible for such depreciation to work a serious harm. 
We think it often does. These men with small hopes 
seem shrunken in their Christian growth, and they actu- 
ally are shrunken. It is better, vastly better, to cherish 
and nourish a hope, than to starve it. 



NEWNESS OF LIFE, 

What does newness of life mean ? A new life must 
be antedated by a new birth : so much we know. A new 
birth is a being born into new things, and a new life is 
a continuance therein. Then, as Christians, have we al- 
ways newness of life ? Do we continually walk in the 
way entered upon when the old things of sin and de- 
basing worldliness were renounced ? Or is there daily a 
lapsing away into habits that hurt, and indulgences that 
tell sadly against our soul's present and future well-being ? 

We may not argue that Christian living becomes old, 
and that therefore newness of life is impossible to one 
past his early Christian experience. All Christian feeling 
and desire is renewed day by day. it is fresh with every 
morning's freshness. New things are opening up to the 
Christian's recognition constantly — new things in the line 
of God's goodness and human want, of the Creators 
marvelous bounty and the creature's capacity to receive 
and be blest. All that is great and glorious in nature, all 
that is sweet and tender in revelation and experimental 
knowledge, is baptized anew with divine grace so often 
that it can not become stale. 

The soul has its longings and its answers, and in these 
is newness of life yet further exemplified. W T hat we live 
upon to-day will not sustain us to-morrow. The same 



"JESC7S WEPT." 185 

in kind may satisfy, yet it is different in fact. It is some- 
how changed. That which we pray for to-day and re- 
ceive, we may pray for next week, and again receive, yet 
it is not the same; it is new, it meets our want, it helps us 
on. God pity those to whom nothing fresh comes, — 
whose being is but an existence, — whose one complaint 
is that all things have become old ! 

There are some such, who claim the Christian's title } 
who walk in Christian fellowship with their compeers. 
Theirs is the old life, over and over again — the week-day 
routine, the Sabbath church-going. New things made 
their hearts glad once, but there is no longer anything 
new. They pray the same prayers, they feel the same 
faint aspirations, they cling to the same weak faith, as in 
earlier years. How meager it all is ! New life is new 
faith, new aspirations, new askings. May this newness 
of life make us all to rejoice ! 



"jjesus wept: 1 

Christ's humanity is touchingly pictured in the two 
words which comprise the shortest verse in the Bible. In 
the same chapter wherein is found the sublime declara- 
tion — " I am the resurrection and the life," it is recorded, 
"Jesus wept." Divinity speaks forth in the declaration ; 
humanity sorrowfully manifests itself in the brief, simple 
record. 



i86 " jesus wept:* 

Though, as we read the Gospel narrations, we can 
readily believe the Saviour to be "a man of sorrows and 
acquainted with grief," we never realize how closely His 
nature is allied to our own until we see Him weeping in 
sympathy with others over a friend dead. Christ healing 
the sick, making the blind to see, causing the lame to 
walk, and performing all those GoD-like miracles which 
so clearly prove His superior power, wins our most de- 
vout worship ; Christ sorrowing as we sorrow, stricken 
in heart with a grief so common to us all, calls out our 
deepest and warmest love. 

Human grief is so very human that it moves us with a 
strange control. We cannot look upon it in', idle indiff- 
erence. Griefs are of many kinds, however, and not all 
move us alike. Sorrow born of death has the strongest 
influence. Speaking of this sorrow one said once, in 
our hearing, — "When a friend dies it is not so much 
that one we loved is dead, but that a part of our life is 
wanting." And so when we see stricken ones mourning 
over the part of their life which they miss, our hearts 
respond in sincere sympathy. When the Redeemer 
weeps over Jerusalem, because of its wickedness, we are 
touched, but in only a slight degree ; when, with Mary 
and Martha, He weeps over the dead friend and brother, 
we can scarcely do other than add our tears to His. 

Perhaps in no other portion of the inspired narrative 
is the marvelous union of the divine and the human, in 
the person of Christ, so clearly shown as in this eleventh 
chapter of John. Jesus wept not as we weep when those 
we love are taken from us. His humanity asserted itself 



MY THANKFUL THOUGHT. 1 87 

for a moment, but had He not said to the sorrowing 
Martha — *'Thy brother shall rise again?" What need 
that He should be long troubled in spirit ? Only a mo- 
ment later, and He could say ' ' Lazarus, come forth, n 
and the tomb would yield up its dead. Blending with 
the tears of the man was the wonderful power of the All- 
Father, which should bring joy to the bereaved but be- 
lieving sisters, and faith to the doubting Jews. 

And still Christ is troubled in spirit because of hu- 
manity's griefs ; still He is saying to all — "I am the res- 
urrection and the life ; " still is the human in His nature 
reaching out to human natures everywhere, to draw them 
up towards the divine. We do not realize this enough. 
We think of Christ too much as one who was crucified 
for our sakes, but having been crucified is forevermore 
disassociated from us, and from everything allied to hu- 
manity. We need to appreciate more clearly that He is 
still our elder brother, — sympathizing with us, sorrowing 
with us, and even interceding for us. 



MY THANKFUL THOUGHT. 

The Master on the Mountain, the disciples on the sea ! 

I sit within the twilight, and a picture comes to me — 

A vessel tempest-driven, tossed in anger by the wave ; 

A company despairing, seeing none to help and save ; 

A lonely watcher praying on the lonely mountain side, 

The entrance-door to Heaven by His prayers thrown open wide I 



J 88 MY THANKFUL THOUGHT. 

And now the thought of thankfulness supreme above the rest 

That surge and swell for utterance within my thankful breast, 

Is this : that though the waters rage, and though the tempest sweep 

Around me as I sail along, or waking or asleep, 

The Master on the mountain waits and He will come to me, 

As I shall need Him, walking as of old, upon the sea ! 

There is so much to thank Him for who gave so much to each, 
That my poor heart is oftentimes too full of thanks for speech, 
And so 1 sit in silence oft, and make no sound or sign, 
And yet I think my silence our dear Master can divine, 
Who waits upon the mountain as He waited there of old, 
Whose arms from every danger His disciples will enfold. 

But now I am not silent, though my speech is faint and low, 
Because a flood of feeling fairly makes the tears to flow ; 
Yet through my silence only speaks this thankful thought su- 
preme — 
That in my peril and my pain, when skies the darkest seem, 
My life ahall know its blessedness, my being find its cheer, 
My heart grow warm with gladness, in the Master's coming near ! 

O Master on the mountain ! surely heaven's door did ope 
To prayer of Thine ingoing, and, outcoming, our great Hope I 
The entrance into heaven is our gateway out of sin 
Beyond its shining portal shall the Perfect Peace begin, 
But here amid the striving, 'mid the storm and tempest sore, 
A hint of heaven's holding shall Thy coming bring before ! 



THE CHRIST-CHILD. 

It has been said that no other religion than the Chris- 
tian ever had a child in it ; and the fact as stated is not 
more curious than significant. That Jesus Christ came 
into the world as a little child, means much for us all. 
He began His humanity at the very beginning. There- 
fore there is not an experience He can not understand, 
not one with which He can not sympathize most keenly. 
And is not the fact of such near and complete svmpathy 
most blessed to us ? 

Then as He came to us as a little child, like little chil- 
dren must we go to Him. Manhood is hardened and 
unyielding ; childhood is trustful and yields readily. 
Manhood is full of doubts and questioning ; childhood 
is trustful and questions not. Manhood stands upon 
rights ; childhood claims none, but is willing to receive 
and be glad. And so we must be pliable, trustful, will- 
ing to receive Christ's rare blessing undoubting, if we 
would receive it at all. 

Christ came so very near humanity in His earth-life, 
that it should be an easy thing for us to come very near 
Him in return. Yet it is harder than we might imagine ; 
and it is hard simply because we insist upon holding our 
manhood and womanhood, our foolish lessons of the 
years. "Are we not men and women?" we ask our- 



190 



THE LAND OF MOAB. 



selves, ' ' shall we not maintain our manly dignity and wo- 
manly reserve ? Must we sacrifice individuality to win 
Christ?" 

O miserable questioning ! How much better is the 
wise trust of the child ! The trusting has its reward ; 
the questioning never. The peace of salvation never 
was born of questions, but of faith and prayer. It is not 
a product of the intellect ; it springs up, and grows, and 
bears fruit deep in the heart. The wisest may question 
and find no answer ; the weakest may trust and be answer- 
ed to the uttermost. And all because on a morning 
years ago, in Bethlehem of Judea, a babe was born whose 
name was Jesus Christ. 



THE LAND OF MOAB. 

The theme of the morning was Ruth's Choice. 

What sweeter narrative is there, in all the Bible, than 
this of Ruth ? Here were three women — Naomi and 
her two daughters, Orpah and Ruth. The first had de- 
termined upon a return to the kingdom of Israel ; and 
would these go also ? Many years had Naomi been in 
Moab, but the special tie which had bound her there was 
severed ; she longed with an inexpressible longing for 
rest in old age among the people of God. 

They had come with her, these two women, some dis- 



THE LAND OF MOAB. 



1 9 I 



tance on her journey. Now they must stop,~or go with 
her altogether. Which should it be? Should they con- 
tinue on, or go back? On the one hand was Moab, 
with its pleasures, its prosperity, its associations, its bright 
promises for the future ; over against it was Judah, des- 
olate, lonely, with no prospect of worldly gam or joy. 
It was heathendom and its offerings, or the kingdom of 
the living God without these. Which r 

Orpah chose to go back. The shining hills of Moab 
held more for her than Judah could hold. But Ruth? 
She, too, was tempted. It may not have been easier for 
her to forsake Moab than for Orpah. She may have 
been as strongly attached to its associations, as was her 
sister. Yet her choice was the wiser choice, and through 
these hundreds of years its sweet language has been read 
and sung by Christian humanity the world over — "Entreat 
me not to leave thee, or to return from following after 
thee: for whither thou goest I will go ; and where thou 
lodgest, I will lodge : thy people shall be my people, 
and thy God my God ; where thou diest, will I die, and 
there will I be buried." 

And to-day some of us have come, as Ruth and Or- 
pah came, to the parting of the ways. Friends whom we 
love we have followed to the very edge of Moab's Land. 
As with those two girls, so with us, — a choice must be 
made. Shall we stay in Moab ? It holds for us all that 
it held for them — social joys, worldly advancement, ease 
and pleasure ; it lures us with all the beauty of its shining 
hills, and all the sweet grace of its many charms. Over 
yonder is the sacrifice, the discomfort, the loneliness, the 



I92 THE BLESSED THOUSAND YEARS. 4 

unpleasantness, of Judah. It is life for self, wheie seff 
may find its greatest gains ; or life for God, where there 
may be only the gain of God's favor and eternal rest. 

Shall we choose as Ruth chose? Why should we not? 
Often has it been proven that Moab can not satisfy till the 
end. Why prove it yet again ? 



THE BLESSED THOUSAND YEARS. 

We wait the Blessed Thousand Years ! 

The present with its hopes and fears, 

Its longings all unsatisfied, 

Looks through the portal opening wide 

To let the Future in, and waits 

Its coming through the portal-gates. 

O Future ! near and yet so far — 
Where shines the bright millenial star — 
Haste thy approach ! The days are long 
Till Right shall triumph over wrong, 
Till Morn shall chase away the Night, 
And faith be verified in sight ! 

We wait the Blessed Thousand Years ! 
Dim, undefined, as through our tears 
We forward look, there seems to rise 
A newer earth, with brighter skies 
Than those which beam erewhile on this, 
Where hope attains to fullest bliss ; 



THE BLESSED THOUSAND YEARS. 

Where all the fret, the din and moil, 
That round these weary days of toil, 
Shall find completest recompense ; 
Where, unrestrained, our soul and sense 
Shall feed and ripen on the food 
Gleaned from the fields of perfect good ; 

Where every pampered lust shall be 
Unknown and man be fully free ; 
Where buds of promise know no blight, 
And pure desire brings pure delight ; 
Where all discordant noises cease, 
And only echo songs of peace ! 

Blest Thousand Years ! O righteous God, 
The thorny paths the world has trod 
Are wearying its heart and strength — 
Methinks they weary Thee, at length ! 
Bring, then, the paths that lead erewhile 
Through blooms which hide no secret guile ! 

We wait the Blessed Thousand Years ! 
We wait and labor. He who hears 
A people's prayer for nobler things, 
Will give the good time swifter things : 
While that for which we long and wait 
Our faith and works may ante-date ! 

n 



: 93 



POWER OF PRAYER. 

The preacher's theme this morning was a common 
one. We have all thought more or less of the power of 
prayer ; we have all heard much in regard to it. Yet the 
morning's discourse presented one or two points in a 
comparatively new light, and these are just the points 
upon which many stumble and doubt. 

God is not a God of uncertainties. His purposes are 
not yielding and pliable, so as to be changed by this one's 
request, or that one's pleading. "Then why pray?" 
asks some one. " If God's designs are already deter- 
mined, why waste breath in prayer ? " Because prayer is 
a part of God's plan. It is ordained in the divine econ- 
omy that petition shall prelude bestowal. Anything 
worth having is worth asking for, is the common rule. 

Prayer is spirit-born, God-willed. It is the human 
want, grafted on to the divine purpose. "Ask and 
you will receive, " is the promise. It is not, however, 
a miscellaneous promise, made without any limitation. 
There are many things which we have no right to ask 
for — the granting of which would work us harm rather 
than good. It is only as touching those things the 
granting of which is predetermined, that the promise 
holds secure. 

For what, then, shall we ask? Can we ever know thct 



ABILITY TO GIVE. 



*95 



we ask aright? The Holy Spirit moves to right asking ; 
if we have that as an indwelling presence we shall seldom 
err. There are certain vague, restless stirrings of the 
soul, when a sense of personal need presses upon us as a 
burden. In times like these we are moved to prayer, and 
our prayer is available. Petitions of the lips are wasted 
words ; the prayer of the heart, inspired by the spirit of 
God, is a certain power. 



ABILITY TO GIVE. 

It is the time of giving gifts. Has not this season a 
deeper significance than we are accustomed to think 
upon ? 

Life, primarily a free and splendid gift to us, was 
meant to be, secondarily, a benefit to men at large. Is 
the meaning fulfilled ? How much of the wealth of 
being do we give to those about us ? 

" But I am very poor," says one. '' I am not rich in 
anything which the world needs. Others can bestow of 
their endowments, or of what they have acquired, but I 
must be only a recipient. I have nothing to give." 

So might those disciples have talked, who chanced up- 
on that helpless man who waited by the Gate Beautiful. 
They had no money, and he was there for alms. They 
might have made a seemingly reasonable excuse, and left 



I96 ABILITY TO GIVE. 

him unhelped. They might have said to him" We, too, 
are penniless ;" and he would not have expected a far- 
thing. 

" Silver and gold we have none," they declared, "but 
such as we have give we unto thee. In the name of 
Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk." Was not 
their gift of the very best and most valuable ? And hav- 
ing it in their power to bestow so generously, would any 
excuse suffice for them to withhold the bestowing? 

" Such as we have" — herein lies the secret of it all. In 
our poverty we have yet something which some wayfarer 
needs. At many a Gate Beautiful lies a waiting one, 
whose life we may make glad. 

Weak, are we, and unable to work effectively in and 
of ourselves ? So were those disciples. But there is a 
hint for us in their declarative command. "In the 
name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, " they did what they 
did, and gave what they gave. In Christ's name we 
also must work and give. If, as ieal disciples, we stand 
at the Gate Beautiful, we shall fail not in giving, for the 
spirit will be ours, and to us will be given the means. 
Are we daily passing by the waiting souls ? Then a 
truer discipleship is needed. Are we all our life long 
withholding what men want, in mistakenness or selfish 
greed ? Then, by-and-by, from us will be taken that 
which we have, and it shall be given to him who hath 
not. 



GOD'S TIME. 

The sun goes down, and the light fades out— 
" God has forgotten the world ! " 

Over the heavens come dark and doubt — 
" God has forgotten the world ! " 

The darkness deepens — in gloom we grope— 
" God has forgotten the world !" 

Hidden forever the stars of hope — 
44 God has forgotten the world ! " 

But see ! there's a gleam in the midnight sky ! 

44 God will remember the world ! " 
Stars do shine in the By-and-By — 

44 God will remember the world ! " 

And see ! there's a glow on the eastern hills ! 

44 God will remember the world ! " 
The glad day dawns when the good God wills ! M 

44 God will remember the world ! " 

Ruin and death are abroad to-day — 

God has gone out of the world ! 
What does it profit to preach and pray ? 

God has gone out of the world ! 

Truth is futile, and Right is weak — 

God has gone out of the world ! 
Vainly we listen to hear Him speak — 

Has He forgotten the world ? 



I98 GOOD GIFT'S. 

No ! He liveth, He heeds, He hears ! 
God is alive in the world ! 

Faith can see Him through pain and tears- 
God is alive in the world ! 

He will help in His own good time — 
God is aliye in the world ! 

Right shall win in a day sublime — 
God ivies on in the world ! 



GOOD GIFTS. 

11 If ye, then, being evil, know how to give good gifts 
unto your children, how much more shall your Heaven- 
ly Father give good things to them that ask Him." Thus 
did Ruth repeat the text of the morning. 

At every hearthstone, in this holiday time, some token 
is given and received, telling of kindly regard and affec- 
tion. Parents remember their loved ones; the parents 
in return are remembered. All this giving of gifts is 
beautiful and works out a benefit. Apart from the added 
nearness it imparts to domestic life — setting aside its 
salutary influences in the way of strengthening family 
ties — it is most beneficial. 

Who so receives a testimonal will, if he be studious of 
himself, consider how little he has merited it, how much 
his life and thought and companionship should be im- 



GOOD GIFT'S. 



199 



proved, to be worthy of such regardful manifestation. 
And in the gift there is an incentive to better motive, 
purer action, ambition higher and nobler. With the 
gift's abiding abides the incentive influence, and while it 
abides the being grows nearer what it should be. Good 
gifts, to thoughtful souls, have in them more than the 
world sees, more than the donors apprehend. 

God cares not for the race simply as a race, not for hu- 
manity simply as humanity, but for each individual as 
His own child. 

11 How much more ! " You are tenderly considerate 
of your own ; you would not insult your little one's un- 
doubting faith by putting a stone in the stocking expect- 
antly hung ; how much more careful for His own is your 
Heavenly Father, than any earthly parent can be ! We 
may never fathom the " much more. " It covers breadths 
we can not span, it sweeps vastness we can not look across. 
It comprehends the difference between the finite and the 
Infinite- God ministers to the individual want. His 
love and care are all embracing, yet they distinguish as 
individually as any human love and care can distinguish — 
yea, " how much more! ' But the gifts must be asked 
for. Things come that are not asked for, perhaps, but 
rarely the things we need most. When they do come 
unasked, they are as the exceptional surprises of the 
holiday time. All that our being daily requires should 
be sought for in daily asking. All the good gifts of every- 
day being and doing — the loving spirit, the patience, the 
trust, the hope, the willing service— must be earnestly 
prayed for. While we see universal illustration of earthly 



200 WHEN THE END COMETH. 

gift-giving, why should we doubt the willingness and 
ability of our Heavenly Father to give us all we need? 
The Divine is richer than the human. The One who 
created all holds ever in His hand more than any creature 
can possibly claim title to. Of this great holding our 
blessing is born. But it is begotten of our faith. "Ask 
and ye shall receive, ' is the promise. The promise never 
fails. Perhaps it sometimes seems to, but 'tis only in the 
seeming. Each heart, with a faith in it, can say with 
Phcebe Cary, that 

— spite of many broken dreams, 

This have I truly learned to say — 

That prayers I thought unanswered once, 

Were answered in God s own best way* 



WHEN THE END COMETH 

However careless-minded we may be, there will come 
in our soberer moments, questionings as to what awaits 
us when the end shall approach — the end of this little 
fragment of being which we call life. Just so suie as 
the days steal by, shall we come, sooner or later, to some- 
thing new and strange, and of which we cannot fore- 
judge. We all feel this, more or less deeply ; and we all 
question within ourselves if we are ready to welcome this 
new and strange something into our lives. For we all 
believe that the end of which we speak is not really an 



WHEN THE END COMETH. 201 

end ; that there is more beyond ; that further away into 
the forever than we can conceive, our beings are to reach, 
— that there is no absolute death. 

Men may drive away these questionings, in a measure, 
and may perhaps delude themselves for a time into the 
belief that they have to deal only with the present. But 
is it wise to do this? Is it prudent to say "Soul, take 
thine ease ? " It is not doing away with the grave fact of 
the coming change. When the end cometh, — and the 
end, as we term it, will come, — we shall be obliged to 
face — what ? 

In our whole catalogue of words there is nothing like 
that brief " forever," — brief, as a word ; longer than finite- 
ness can measure* as a time. When the end cometh, the 
forever will begin. Here we can count upon nothing as 
lasting, but in that unending forever all things will be as 
unending as the forever itself. We shall joy on or sor- 
row on, with never a pause — never a summons to cease. 
Here we may be glad for a season and then sad for a 
season — the forever know r s neither season nor change. 
Here we may do evil, if we will, and satisfy conscience 
by a promise of better deeds by-and-by, — in the forever 
we must reap the bitter fruits of our evil-doing, or the 
sweet rewards of doing well. Ah, that incomprehensible 
forever ! There are men whom the word haunts like a 
very demon, — men whose living is blackened by sin and 
crime ; who pretend utter recklessness of the future, but 
in whose mind the little word echoes and re-echoes like 
a never-dying reproach. 

And there are others who whisper it sweetly to them- 



2o2 GOD'S MORROW. 

selves— for whom it is the refrain of a song that makes 
music in their hearts from morning until evening. To 
them it is suggestive of eternal gladness. Their full ac- 
ceptance of salvation through Christ makes of the for- 
ever, for them, a long Sabbath of Rest. They feel that 
when the end ccmeth, there will also come Peace. 

When the end cometh. — It may be next year, or next 
week, or — to-morrow. It cannot be far off, at the most. 
It may be nearer than we think ; our short to-day may 
even now be illuminated somewhat by the light of the 
never-ending to-morrow. Only a little while, and we 
shall greet the end w r hich is but the beginning, and shall 
take into our hfe an eternal joy or sorrow. 



GOD'S MORROW, 

God ! in the night of my sorrow 

Shine Thou with the light of Thy morrow ! — 
That day of sweet rest for the weary, of peace for the tronbled 
ones sore — 
That day of glad sunlight so cheery, 
Whose smile on the world-desert dreary 
Shall quicken rare buds to their blooming, in beauty of bloom 
evermore. 

1 wait, in the dark, its appearing, 
Impatient the while it is nearing, 

For, e'en though the stars may be shining, uncertain and dim is 
the v. ay ; 



"AS THE LEAF:' 203 

Perplexities past my divining 
My feet from the path are inclining, — 
I follow my Saviour like Peter, and go even further astray. 

God ! the dim twilight is chilling ! 
Send soon Thy bright morrow, all thrilling 

With warmth that shall melt me to loving intenser, unshadowed 
by fear ! 

1 long for faith's full-fruited summer, 
With doubting no more an incomer, 

The sunshine of peace all about me and Jesus the Christ ever near! 



"AS THE LEAF." 

1 4 We do all fade as the leaf. " Thus the soul whispers. 
And mayhap the soul sighs a little, and looks back to 
the bud and the blossom with somewhat of regret. For 
fading is sad. And yet if fading be fulfillment, then it is 
not sad. Has not the leaf fulfilled its mission? All 
through the summer it has drunk the tree's juices, draw- 
ing them up through the tree's wonderful cells that the 
tree might grow and work out its destiny. Now its labor 
is over. The growing time lapses into patient waiting. 
Then what can the leaf do but fade? — fade gracefully, as 
becomes a goodly leaf whose fulfillment is attained. 

So if we all do • ' fade as the leaf, " it is a blessed fading. 
If we fade because our mission is wrought out, our labor 
all ended, our opportunity filled full, surely there can be 



204 HUMAN SYMPATHY. 

no more glorious conclusion. In our sober second 
thought we question, Do we ? No leaf drops from its 
stem in this bright autumnal season, which, as a leaf, has 
not done its perfect work. Alas ! how many human 
leaves drop down to dust with their work all unwrought, 
their opportunity all unimproved, their mission a failure ! 



HUMAN SYMPATHY. 

"One touch of nature makes the whole world kin." 
It is as true now as ever it was. Forget it often as we 
may, the fact will find its reminder in some hour we think 
not. A new life warms within when love is born. That 
new life thrives and grows when love abides ; and human 
love, which was born with our humanity, will abide while 
its existence is recognized and approved. With its abid- 
ing, abide better times for all mankind. 

Such human love strengthens our love for things di- 
vine. We can trust God more completely when we put 
large faith in our fellows. Our hearts broaden toward 
Deity when they reach out widely to embrace the world. 
That man's Christianity ought to be best, whose human- 
ity is most far-reaching. And so this is the precious les- 
son of a great woe : we are brothers all, at the last. We 
have common affections, and, thank God ! common 
hopes. And knowing all. sympathizing with us in all, 



A PSALM OF PRAISE. 2O5 

we have an elder Brother, even Jesus Christ, in whose 
humanity we see an example for every human being, in 
whose divinity is our sure promise of that which is to 
come. 



A PSALM OF PRAISE. 

O'ER all November's dreariness; 

And all the waning year's complaint, 
Through smoky haze 
Of summer days 
That fill the skies 
With sweet surprise 
When earth in splendid vesture lies, 
There comes a peace my soul to bless, 
And calm me, though I inly faint. 

It steals upon me like a dream, — 
A tender dream, as softly kind 
As ever blest 
A soul at rest ; 
And one by one 
Each morning sun 
Is kissing me, as it has done 
With magic in its golden beam 

Since Youth its garlands for me twined. 

I live again each morning o'er ; 

I breathe again each morning's air, 
Each fancy sweet 
Again repeat ; 



206 A PSA L M OF PRAISE. 

Each gladsome thrill 
At dreaming's will 
Asserts that it has power still ; 
And joys that long have gone before 
Another yield of pleasure bear. 

Where I had sung a psalm of praise, 
Again the praiseful psalm I sing ; 
Where sad I sighed, 
Or moaning cried, 
I sigh no more 
With sadness sore, 
But know the fruit that sorrow bore 
Is blessing all my brief to-days, 
And so a peal of joy I ring ! 

As one by one the days go by, 
# I see my Lord's dear presence near 

*, His touch I feel 

In woe and weal, 
And day by day 
He leads my way, 
From morning till the evening gray ; 
And gladly thankful then am I 

To hear His voice of holy cheer. 

I bless Thee, O Thou righteous God ! 
That yesterdays Thou gavest me ! 
That they were mine, 
And I was Thine ! 
And Thee I bless 
In thankfulness 
For the to-day that I possess : 
And when the way of life I 've trod 
May I the past recall with Thee ! 



THE RENDERING OF GRATITUDE. 

Here on this Sabbath evening, which with its holy si- 
lence waits upon the New Year's dawning, what is more 
fitting than that we think of all God has done for us in 
the twelve-month gone, of all He may do for us in the 
time to come ? What more becometh us than heartfelt 
gratitude for all His mercies ? 

But is the rendering of gratitude so simple a thing ? 
Is it indeed, so universal a thing? Grateful, are we? 
Very likely ; but not always in the way we should be. 
As gratitude is a personal rendering, so should the ren- 
dering be to a personal God. It is not enough that we 
feel a sort of gratitude to nature, to law. In nature and 
in law we must see a living God, — a God of love and to 
be loved, — and to Him must be rendered the service of 
our hearts. 

The beginning or the ending of any year may be really 
no more than other times to us, yet it is well that we 
consider such beginning or ending as a way-mark in life, 
a sort of stopping place, where we may pause to look 
back — where, in the midst of all our hurry and worry, 
we may stop to be glad. For we are too rarely glad. 
Those things which would cause regret and sorrow seem 
to us far more numerous than those other things whereof 
we should rejoice. But full to overflowing of happy hap- 
penings is our life, all the rounded weeks. 



2o8 BLESSED ARE THEY THAT MOURN. 

Happenings ? Call them not so. There is no chance 
with Him to whom we owe all that we have and are. 
Nothing merely happens, with God, therefore nothing 
merely happens with us. We may use the word, if only 
we use it with the right meaning underneath. And be- 
cause there is no happening — because all that comes to 
us of being and having is wisely foreordered — our grati- 
tude should go out perpetually. 



BLESSED ARE THEY THAT MOURN. 

" Blessed are they that mourn ! " 

Ah, many there be, then, blest ! 
No day its beauties complete hast worn 

Till evening lighted the West. 
Some hour grows dark with woe 

Though bright soever the dawn, 
Some bitter regret each heart must know 

For treasures too early gone. 

We sorrow, alas ! how much ! 

Our eyes grow weary of tears, 
As pain comes closer with cruel touch 

Through all the pitiless years. 
We sorrow, and weakly trust 

Through sorrow we may grow strong, 
Yet sorrowing pray to the Good and Just — 

u How long, O our Lord, how long ? " 



BLESSED ARE THEY THAT MOURN. 

There comes to our human cry 

Response that is all divine, 
And whether we heed it, or pass it by, 

' T is equally yours and mine. 
As sweet as a psalm of peace 

It echoes along the air, 
And grief has ever its full surcease 

In this one answer to prayer. 

How long shall we mourn ? Alas ! 

The answer has naught of this ; 
The night of our sorrow may quickly pass, 

Soon pain may be turned to bliss ; 
Or never may come the dawn, 

And peace to the throbbing breast, 
We never may chance on the gladness gone,- 

But they that do mourn are blest ! 

This, this is the answer heard 

In response to our human cry ; 
God breathes no tenderer healing word 

To hearts that must hear or die. 
Though sorrow has crushing weight, 

And leaves us bleeding and torn, 
Reward for tears will be sweet and great, 

For ''Blessed are they that mourn I" 



209 




CHRISTIAN EXPRESSION. 

" There could have been no silent Redeemer, and be- 
lieve me, my friends, He can have no expressionless 
representatives." 

So said the preacher this morning, and to-night Ruth 
calls up the saying, and we ponder it. 

"Months ago/' she remarks, "we read on one of our 
Sabbath Evenings a poem about 'The Silent Christ/ I 
shall always remember it. It spoke of the Saviour's boy- 
hood, and young manhood — of how He walked Judea's 
hills and gave no sign of the divinity within Him — and 
always since then I have seen at times the picture that 
poem drew of my Redeemer's silent years. It must have 
t>een a true picture ; and yet the preacher did not declare 
amiss. Christ was not silent after His redeeming mis- 
sion began. All His life then was just a wonderful 
speech. How men listened to it ! How they are listen- 
ing still ! " 

" But if His followers be not voiceless, " one asks, "do 
they echo their Master's speech ? " 

"Not often enough," is her answer. How can they ? 
They are not divine. They are very human. They 
speak out of human difficulties, and human besetments, 
and the ten thousand surroundings that annoy and per- 
plex. They are fretted, and harassed, and borne down 



CHRISTIAN EXPRESSION. 21 1 

Their tongues are Jed astray, and they utter sad com- 
plaints. Their lives are warped by evil, and give sad 
testimonies. But they do somehow give expression. 
They are not dumb. Representing Christ before men, 
they speak for Him or against Him, whether they will or 
no. And the world listens, moved for good or ill." 

" Would it not be better if we were voiceless for 
Christ, since we can not always give testimony in a wise 
way ? " 

" No. We must learn the wisdom of testifying. We 
must seek to live right, that our expression may be help- 
ful, and true to Christian faith. Ours is not a testimony 
of the lips — that amounts to little — but of the life, and 
this amounts to much. Though we be dumb as statues, 
we may speak so that many shall hear and heed. • It was 
not in His words alone, marvelous and profound as they 
were, that Christ spoke loudest to those around Him. 
He was eloquent for humanity in every act. No tributes 
of speech could have so tenderly sanctified human being, 
with all its possibilities, as did He sanctify the same 
wherever He Walked and wrought. "' 
"But we can not do as He did ? " 
" Certainly not. We can not raise the dead, — saving 
dead purposes to live nobly and unselfishly, and dead re- 
solves to be pure of common sins ; we can not heal the 
sick, and bless the blind, and make a present heaven for 
those of perfect faith. Yet we can imitate the Master's 
life, and thus in some faint degree echo His abiding 
speech. We can look at His modest denial of self, and 
be more unselfish. We can see how He loved men, and 



2 12 BEFORE THE SERVICE. 

be more forbearing. We can remember how He suffered 
for the world, and be more patient as in the world we are 
made to suffer. We can see how He trusted in the very 
deeps of darkness, and be more trustful when clouds of 
trouble come. " 

Ah, yes. We can give a truer testimony that Christ 
did well so to speak and die for us all. And men will 
note it if we do, and will ask what such living speech 
can mean. 



BEFORE THE SERVICE, 

Dear Lord and Master, Thou who went 
Apart from men so oft to pray, 

Give me a calm and sweet content, 

Communing here with Thee to-day ! 

I leave the world of sin behind, 
I turn to Thee my eager face, 

All that I want in Thee to find, 

Within this hallowed, holy place. 

My poverty its need forgets : 

Before Thy will my longing fails ; 

The mi&t of murmuring and regrets 
Beneath Thy loving smile exhales. 

My sinful self no more I see ; 

Forgot is all that I have been ; 



IN SIGHT OF THE CITY. 213 

The veil between my soul and Thee 
Is lifted, and I enter in — 

Within a holier than this — 

The temple of Thy love divine — 
And foretaste have of heavenly bliss, 

And know that endless joy is mine ! 



IN SIGHT OF THE CITY. 

There is an old legend of a soldier who journeyed to- 
ward Jerusalem, to make crusade against the heathen who 
held it. His hopes were high, and he went on bravely 
day by day, till looking from a mountain-top at length 
he saw the city's walls and gleaming roofs, and thought 
his victory near at hand. Bnt then he sickened, and 
there he died — died in sight of the glories he never 
should enjoy. 

Are we not all journeying toward Jerusalem? The 
Pilgrim's lion Gate is before us each. It must open, if 
ever we pass through into tbe beauties beyond. Like 
the brave Crusader, we may die in sight of the city's 
walls — may, yes, we must. It is given none to reach the 
goal, except they yield up life. But we are more blessed 
in our pilgrimage than the soldier was in his. To him 
death came with stern pathos, at the end of all his hopes 
and aims. There was the city, gleaming in the cloudless 



2T4 LET NOT YOUR HEART BE TROUBLED. 

sun, but he should not set his foot therein. All his toils 
had been for naught. For us, however, the city will 
smile a welcome, when we come in sight, and we shall 
know if we be but wise in time, that the curtain of death 
lets down between it and us only to rise on brighter 
glories when the Glad Day dawns. 



"LET NOT YOUR HEART BE TROUBLED!" 

" Let not your heart be troubled ! " 

No sweeler words of cheer 
The Master spake for their dear sake, 

Whose love was full of fear. 
" Lo, I am with you always ! " 

Glad thought of lonely ones ; 
Through dreary way by mght and day, 

The silvery sentence runs ! 

" Let not your heart be troubled ! " 

What troubleth thine, my friend ? 
Do you not know that Christ can go 

No more to painful end ? 
Do yot not feel His comforting 

Amid your trials all ? 
No bitter loss by cruel cross 

Can on your loving fall. 

" Let not your heart be troubled ! '* 

The springs of life are sweet 
If you but drink at the fountain's brink 



SHALL HE BE SAVED 1 

That flows by Jesus' feet. 
In Him the doubt of being 

Its full assurance knows ; 
In Him all fret and fear are met 

By full and sweet repose. 



2I 5 



SHALL HE BE SAVED? 

We read the other day of a man buried in a well. 
The well was deep and he could not extricate himself. 
Through a small opening beside the pump he could be 
communicated with, and could secure a little fresh air, 
enough to prevent suffocation. How friends rallied to 
save him ! Through all the neighborhood ran the cry of 
danger to a life. They worked with a noble will — rela- 
tives, neighbors, and those to whom the victim was only 
a man, in need of humanity's service. They called to 
him encouragingly, they plied shovel and pick, they for- 
got all else on that quiet Sabbath afternoon, but this 
man's great need and their great obligation. Again and 
again, as his deliverance seemed at hand, did the earth 
cave in once more, and bury him more completely ; again 
and again did they bend all their energies to the gener- 
ous task. They sank a pipe to him, and forced air down 
through it ; they built a curb, to prevent the earth from 
pressing too heavily upon his head ; they toiled on, al. 



210 SHALL HE BE SAVED 1 

most without thought of tiring, putting more and more 
of plan and system into their work, vieing with each 
other in doing man's duty to man. 

The day waned, but still they rested not. The mer- 
chant, the minister, the professional man, labored right 
on through all those weary hours, side by side with the 
humblest toiler from the ditch. Before the great stress 
of that awful time all class conditions vanished. They 
were simply all men, loyal to a common manhood, and 
zealous in a common cause. Darkness came on, the 
long hours of night wore away ; but yet they wavered 
not. Morning dawned, and still was their brother in 
peril, discouraged, faint, perhaps dying. Only one or 
two could labor, as the end was neared, and these at the 
risk of their own lives. All were exhausted with their 
waiting and their work. Then the fire-bell rang out its 
warning of danger. To property ? Ah, no ! to a hu- 
man life ! Fresh hands must toil that any hands might 
save. 

And they did toil, as bravely as their fellows had done. 
They toiled, and they won. A few hours more and the 
man was saved — weak, bruised, half-unconscious, but 
saved ; and from all hearts went up a great throb of joy, 
while cheers of victory rent the air. 

Down in the pit of intemperance a man has fallen. 
He is somebody's father, somebody's husband, some- 
body's friend. Let the cry run through all the commu- 
nity. Let it set the bells of alarm to ringing ; let hu- 
manity be aroused ! Shall he be saved ? Into deeper 
and more dangerous depths never man fell. If he get 



THE LONELY LAND. 



217 



out at all it must be by the help of friendly hands, and 
the merey of God. Are your hands outstretched ? Are 
you answering the call ? Will you forget self and selfish 
interests, and toil freely for this brother in distress ? — will 
you save a soul? " Unto the least of these, my little 
ones/' said the Master. His words were very broad, and 
they reach over and include all duty, and all doing. 
Wherever there is human need, there must humanity go 
to help and to save. They must answer for their sin, who 
walk selfishly by on the other side. 



THE LONELY LAND. 

A lonely land ! 

Beneath an Eastern sun 
It sleeps in dreary peace till day is done. 
Along the sandy reaches pilgrims go 
From lands far-lying, searching to and fro 
For signs of that old life the ages knew 
When earth was young, and men their nurture drew 
So free and pure it beat through cycles long 
In patriarchal pulses firm and strong. 

A lonely land ! 

Its mountains calmly lift 
Their faces sunward, but they see no thrift 
Upon their slopes, and hear no busy hum 



2l8 THE LONELY LAND. 

From valleys busy. To them seldom come, 

As early came, the saintly devotees 

With plaint and prayer their pain of soul to ease. 

They sit in silence, in a silent land. 

As if they waited some Divine command. 

A lonely land ! 

As kingly and serene 
Fair Tabor rises, looking o'er the scene, 
The dreamy hushes round about it thrill 
To no glad being ; Esdraelon isf still 
As if it never felt the heavy tread 
Of conquering legions ; all the past is dead 
To present seeing ; on the dreary plains 
No hint of fading Yesterday remains. 

A lonely land ! 

The slope of Olivet 
Is haunted by a ghost of old regret, 
And in its silence ever seems to wait 
The echo of some footfall missed of late ; 
The paths that climb the hills of Nazareth 
Are dull and somber as the walks of death, 
And Bethlehem looks out of sober eyes 
On all the peace that round about it lies. 

A lonely land ! 

Uncertain Galilee 
Is always but a patient, lonely sea, 
In storm or calm, and rests amid its hills 
Remembering ever, with a thought that thrills 
To sweeter murmurs, touch of Godly feet, 
And words of Masterhood when fierce it beat, 
And sighing always for the men who came 
And swept its bosom in the Master's name. 



LOOKING BACKWARD. 

A lonely land ! 

For out of it went Christ ! 
And time and need have never yet enticed 
His glad returning. Waiting till He come, 
The sweetest speech of vale and hill is dumb ; 
The deepest breath of holiest Mount is stirred 
For longing ear no more by healing word ; 
The silent peace of all this silent land 
Re-echoes never a Divine command ! 

A lonely land ! 

And yet the solitudes 
Are full and prescient with a Life that broods 
Above the present, as it pulsing went 
Throughout the past, — a Life that sweetly bent 
To bear the world's great burden, bore it then 
From vale to mountain-top, and gave to men 
The Life Immortal, from the Crown and Cross, 
And left them rich, though lonely for their loss ! 



219 



LOOKING BACKWARD. 

As we sit. here in the firelight, on this final evening of 
December, a fair face hangs before us on the wall. Be- 
hind us, looking down upon the paper as we write, is a 
portrait of dear old Whittier, the Quaker poet, who 
seems to be thinking of his vis-a-vis opposite, the sweet ; 
fair face with eyes turned sidewise into distance — as he 



2 20 LOOKING BACKWARD. 

thought years ago of another imaginative form, — as the 

11 Angel of the Backward Look ! " 
For the ideal head that hangs above our desk is Retro- 
spection ; and the meditative womanhood it pictures is 
looking backward, as so much meditative womanhood 
and manhood beside is looking backward, on the time 
gone by. Now while the year grows old, and we are so 
soon to turn the last page of our liie-volume and read 
"Finis" again, what vision more fit than this retrospec- 
tive one ? 

We have come a toilsome way, perhaps ? Then let us 
turn and gaze upon it, with hearts a little saddened for 
the hurts it gave us, and the weariness it knew. We 
have lost some tender things out of our days, may be? 
Then let us muse upon them in that sweet, sad silence 
which is too holy for speech. We have stumbled 
over the pitfalls of our own wild passions and desires, 
perchance? Then let us look back over failures, and 
sore bruises, and grow stronger amid regrets. 

This angel of the Backward Look may be best com- 
pany for every one, if only what she sees shall be wisely 
turned by us to our account. She is a Presence certain 
as the life within. She may hide herself, often, but she 
rarely quite forsakes. She walks with us all, day by day, 
even as the ideal face looks always away into the past, 
here in the quiet of our peaceful home. She is meant 
to be — let us trust she is — an angel of blessing; if she 
were to prove otherwise, some might come to think her 
almost a fiend. 

Men should sometimes turn and look back, that thev 



AT EVEN-TIME. 221 

may find a clearer vision for the way before. These ret- 
rospective pauses in life are full of happy advantage, — or 
ought to be. Our to-day should be wiser for our yester- 
day ; our future should prove richer for our past. We 
need the recession of distance to judge wisely what we 
were and what we did. Impulse cools, passion lapses, 
prejudice dies out, error sees less blinded, every faculty 
of being trims itself for truer use. Our present can not 
be correctly known, until we put it from us, and view it 
retrospectively. There can be no perspective except as 
we have light and shade, and these will appear to every- 
one who looking backward dwells alike on sad and glad 
things, seeing equal grace in each. 



AT EV£N^ TIME. 

O Lord ! the way is dark and lone : 

I grope about, uncertain long ; 
No gladness that my life has known 

Flows forth in happy thrills of song. 
My sky with gloom is dull and drear ; 

No stars smile out with beauty bright ; 
But through the dark these words I hear — 

" At evening time there shall be light ! 

My midday sun has hid his face, — 
I can not see the glory round ; 
If God should seek me in this place, 



222 AT EVEN-TIME. 

And make to me no sign or sound, 
I should not know His presence near, 

I should not wonder at the sight ; 
But in this promise is my cheer — 

" At evening time there shall be light ! n 

O Lord ! in weariness I pray 

That Thou wilt come and walk with me, 
As Thou of old didst walk the way 

With shining face, that I may see ! 
Or give me patience, till appear 

Some cheering rays, to bide the night, 
And let me never cease to hear — 

" At evening time there shall be light ! " 

Life's little day will reach its close ; 

The dreary way will find an end ; 
To worn and weary sweet repose 

Will come as comes the dearest friend. 
O Lord ! I pray Thee, grant that this 

Shall be my song when comes the night, 
And day's dark gloom fades into bliss — 

" ' T is evening time, and there is light ! " 




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020 185 619 A 



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